Blog Archives

Alpaida species?

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

5mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

One of my books (below) has a picture of a very similar looking spider identified as a spiny flag spider, Alpaida cornuta, also from Costa Rica. I wasn’t able to find anything online though using either the common name or the scientific name. The World Spider Catalog doesn’t seem to recognize that name at all, but I saw two species there from Costa Rica, A. bicornuta and A. championi. Perhaps this is one of those.

Here’s a similar looking unidentified Alpaida from Ecuador, so I think the genus is probably correct. read more

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Trapjaw Ants

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

10mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

Not great shots, but I wanted to post these shots of some trapjaw ants, Odontomachus erythrocephalus. While taking the first photos of my trip, I knelt down on a log on the side of the trail in order to steady my camera. A few seconds later, I was stung by one of these guys on the inside of my knee. Turns out they had a nest in that log, and they weren’t happy about being disturbed. They don’t seem to like to expose themselves though, and I had a hard time trying to photograph them once they painfully made me aware of their presence. read more

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Cephalotes basalis

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

7mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

If I managed to use this “Key to Cephalotes Species Known from Costa Rica, Based on Minor Workers” correctly, then these images are of Cephalotes basalis.

There were quite a few crawling around on low vegetation.

Dorsal View

One interesting thing about this arboreal genus is that some members (perhaps all) have the ability to glide during free fall. If they fall, they use this ability to attempt to maneuver themselves toward their host tree trunk where they have a much better chance of returning to their nest. read more

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Mating Snout Beetles

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

2mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

These beetles are tiny. Each one is only a few millimeters long.

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Army Ant Week Post #2

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

July 20, 2006 | Ilhabela, Sao Paulo State, Brazil

These two photos are from my first trip to Brazil. I spent a week on the island of Ilhabela, a few hours drive from Sao Paulo.

I probably wouldn’t even have noticed these ants if not for the calling of antbirds. The birds were making quite a fuss so I moved in to investigate. That’s when I started to hear a light rustling noise and then noticed the ants carpeting the leaf litter. The rustling is not just the ants, but all of their potential prey trying to escape.

Below, they’ve managed to overwhelm a spider, er, well, actually just a shed spider skin. Honestly, I always believed this was a captured spider until reviewing it yesterday when I noticed something was off. read more

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Colorful Snout Beetle

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

12mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

I really love the colors on this snout  beetle. Check out the detail. The image is not quite as sharp as I’d like, but just look at all those little colorful scales.

Detail

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Crypsis Challenge #8 Reveal

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

Well, this challenge was certainly more difficult than I anticipated. Nonetheless, several people did find the frog in the image above. Below, I’ve outlined it.

Frog Revealed

Now that you know it’s there, I bet you can’t look at the image without it standing out.

Andrea J. went on to suggest it might be a Leptodactylid. I agree. Here’s a close crop from the photo above.

Overhead crop

I picked up this book while in Costa Rica:

[book:0970567804]

According to that book, all Costa Rican leptodactylids lack webbing between their fingers. In the crop above, I don’t see any webbing. There are only three genera in Costa Rica. One genus has only large species, and this one is small. Another has only a single species, easily dismissed because it has extremely warty skin. So by deduction this must be an Eleutherodactylus species. There are 40 highly variable species in that genus that the book calls a “taxonomic nightmare”, so I won’t speculate further on the species. I might even be wrong about the family :). See comments below… I was fooled by the size. Turns out it’s the first genus I dismissed based on size, and it’s just a baby. read more

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Colorful Micromoth

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

11mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica

This was the first subject I found after starting along the coastal trail in Cahuita National Park. There were dozens of these little moths on some sort of plant that was prevalent along the coastal trail. When I spotted the first one, I thought perhaps it was a leafhopper. It was only after seeing one up close that I realized it was a moth, and a spectacularly colored one at that.

I’m amazed at how well the forewing and hindwing patterns line up. While clearly two wings toward the tail end, you can barely make out the division between them elsewhere. As for what purpose this pattern serves, I’m stumped. They stand out well on the foliage, so it’s hard to imagine it provides camouflage. Perhaps these are warning colors, but why then the intricate pattern towards the rear? It might be a false eye sort of thing to distract attention away from the important end. And the two red bands do look kind of like legs, if the thing were facing the opposite direction. read more

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Identification Challenge #7 Reveal

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Troy Bartlett

All commenters correctly determined that this was a moth:

January 26, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil

At the time I took the picture, I assumed this was a butterfly. It acted like a butterfly, being active during the day and the way it held its wings (not folded over the back like many moths).

It was only when reviewing the photo later that I noticed it looked a bit odd for a butterfly. Like many commenters, I noted the lack of clubbed antennae. I didn’t try to identify it, but I remembered it when I read an interesting short article in a recent issue of Natural History magazine. The article was all about day flying moths in the subfamily Dioptinae (family Notodontidae). I emailed the author, James S. Miller, asking if he thought this might be one. Here’s his response: read more

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Young Rattlesnake

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Troy Bartlett

January 31, 2010 | Tupaciguara, Minas Gerais, Brazil

I haven’t yet driven MG-223 that leaves Tupaciguara in the direction of Araguari at night without seeing a snake crossing the road. Here’s the most recent one I spotted, which I assume is a young rattlesnake. It’s small, maybe 6 inches or so, and it looks like it has a button at the end of its tail.

My real dilemma when I spot one is whether or not to stop and risk getting hit by another vehicle. At any rate, I’m definitely in a hurry to get a photo and get back up to speed. read more

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