The place we spent longest in on the whole holiday was Lapa Rios on the Osa peninsula. This is in the bottom right corner of Costa rica on the Pacific coast. The lodge was very isolated and we spent 5 nights there, so a good chance to explore.
One of the things that excited us most was the non-birds/ non-mammals part. The lodge and surroundings were alive with insects and reptiles, especially as night fell. The walkways between the rooms, which were quite far apart, gave very good perspectives on a number of animals.
Whenever you walked you had to be careful not to step on the trails of leaf cutter ants parading their wares back to their nests.
The ones I liked best were those with flowers, as in the photo above. I built this whole story in my mind about them being the interior decorators for the colony, not worrying about food but about the aesthetics of the place.
They also performed another key role, clearing up after the other insects. Whenever you saw a dead insect it was rapidly covered in ants. You couldn't see quite how, but over a number of hours, 8 in the case of this cricket,
they dismembered it piece by small piece and carried it away. You get an idea of the scale of their task from the photo above. the power of their jaws must be phenomenal.
Whilst sitting on our balcony I saw a smallish lizard climbing a tree. Suddenly a bright-red flap appeared on its throat. This is a territorial display though why it was worried about me I'm not sure!
I think this is a ground anole, not an uncommon lizard but very beautiful.
As darkness fell loads of praying mantis (mantii, mantises?) appeared around the lights.
They were quite large, about 4 or 5 inches long. you also got a lot of other strange insects using the hotel lights as traps for their dinner.
One evening we went for a guided walk around the grounds to see what we could find. There were a few snakes around though fortunately we didn't come across any of the very deadly ones!
The red-eyed tree frogs were the stars as usual, relatively easy to find and very compliant to lights being shone on them for photographic purposes.
You came across some of their cousins the bullfrogs lurking in the undergrowth as well. These are very large, a bit bigger than a tennis ball.
The most macabre sight was in one of the pools where a snake had caught a frog (still alive) and was trying to eat it. It seemed to be struggling but we didn't want to intervene so will never know the outcome of this!
I normally don't like spiders, not petrified of them but prefer to keep my distance, however I seemed to end up taking lots of photos on the nighttime walks in CR.
Fortunately they seemed more intent on waiting for something more manageable to eat than me!
The jungles here are known for their brightly coloured frogs but it was pretty dry whilst we were there so they were hard to find. This little beauty was wandering about on the walkway one morning making us a bit late for breakfast!
Finally, with some time on our hands one afternoon I gathered up a few dead insects and had a go at bit of macro photography.
Only a random fly and a dead cicada, which were very numerous around the hotel.
This was only the entre though to the main course of the birds and the mammals, more of which to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment