Last night a sea snake washed up on the beach. There are only two reasons sea snakes ever leave the sea: breeding and sickness. It’s not the breeding season. This was one sick snake. Craig tried to throw it back, but it just washed up again, so we settled for inspecting it at a respectful distance. Sea snakes have deadly venom, and there is no antivenin, probably because bites are so rare (they aren’t aggressive or common). It was a beautiful animal, long and dark with a laterally flattened tail with bright yellow dots on it. Definitely made for swimming. Craig did an autopsy, but didn’t figure out why it died. It’s bittersweet to see an amazing animal under those circumstances.
The tides have been extreme during our visit here. Lots of rock was exposed on the low tide, and high tide in the evening brought water to the very top of the beach. Fierce waves threw boulders twice the size of my fist around, making a musical rumbling noise. The sound of the ocean lulls us to sleep at night; I don’t think the traffic of San Jose tomorrow will do as well!
Mist-netting last night yielded only one bat species, but it was a cool one – a frog-eating leaf-nosed bat with tentacles on its chin for detecting poisonous frogs before ingesting them. We also caught a huge beetle in the mist-net; from the sidelines it looked big enough to be a small bat.
I’ve started to get a handle on some of the tropical plant families. It’s something I’m fairly comfortable with in the temperate zone, but down here it’s not oaks and ashes and maples. Some of the families I’ve learned are Heliconiaceae, Annonaceae (paw-paw is the only temperate species), Marantaceae, Melastomataceae (gorgeous leaf venation), Rubiaceae (coffee family), Piperaceae (black pepper family), and Bombacaceae. There are lots more, but at least I have a start! La Selva should be a great site for learning plants.
I saw king vulture today, one of the birds I’ve always wanted to see. It was way up in the sky, circling in a thermal with a bunch of black vultures and what looked like a peregrine falcon (but I wasn’t sure). Hopefully I’ll get a closer look later in the trip – I’d like to see their colorful heads. A walk in the evening yielded and green-breasted mango (I think that’s the name… it’s a humming bird) and a rufous-and-white wren. The long-tailed manakin continues to evade me – it’s at the top of my Cabo Blanco wish list. I have until 7:30 tomorrow morning. ☺
We collected our model anoles this morning and found marks of predation on 14 out of 80 – more than we expected, and enough to get borderline significant results. We found more food in the litter than the canopy, and more predation on the beach than in the forest. The presentation went well, and I’m glad to not be writing the paper – it’s due tonight, and we only finished analyzing data at 2:30.
Before lunch Bob took 12 of us out to see the local bat caves. One of the sub-caverns is full of vampire bats. You can recognize them by their smelly black feces (partially digested blood, mmm!) and the way they move – most bats hang in the cave, at most propping themselves up with their forearm/wings, but vampires RUN AROUND. They have to be able to creep up on their prey, so they can walk on all fours. If you disturb them in their cave, some will fly, but many scamper. It looks pretty weird. We also saw small leaf-nosed bats, larger predatory leaf-nosed bats, and sacwings. And the largest cockroach in the western hemisphere, which eats all the different tasty things you find in bat caves. I can elaborate later if you’re interested. The vampire bat population is out of control here because the surrounding agricultural communities provide so much food: chickens, cattle, and dogs mostly.
We leave for San Jose tomorrow. Before breakfast at 6:00 we have to have carried our bags out 500 meters; we’re supposed to be on the bus and rolling by 7:30 in order to make our 10:00 ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya. There are guaranteed to be cool birds on the gulf. We might get to see dolphins, whales and (healthy) sea-snakes too! I’ve got to get packing now before we lose the daylight; packing by headlamp doesn’t sound like much fun. Tomorrow night it will be back to internet, hot showers, and electricity (in order of importance).
Tonight there will be a driftwood-bonfire party on the beach. Yay!
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