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Blog Archives
Female Yellow-headed Gecko
January 21, 2011 | Finca La Isla, Limon Province, Costa Rica
Compared to the male, this female Gonatodes albigularis is quite drab.
She looks as if she has suffered some unfortunate incident. Not only does she appear to be regrowing the tip of her tail, but one of her hind feet seems a bit mangled.
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Feeding Derbids
30mm (wingspan) | January 21, 2011 | Finca La Isla, Limon Province, Costa Rica
These planthoppers in the family Derbidae are feeding on the yellow stem.
You can clearly see the left one’s beak (rostrum) inserted in the stem. Next time I’ll have to try and get a good profile shot. They really are odd looking.
Face on
Also odd are those Velcro like hooks along the leading edge of the wing.
What purpose might these hooks server?
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Male Wandering Spider
January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
This wandering spider in the family Ctenidae was spotted at the base of a large tree.
The large palps leave no doubt that this is a male.
Palps indicate a male
The eye arrangement was my first clue to the family. They also have a deep groove along the mid-line of the carapace, called a fovea, just barely visible in these photos.
I wasn’t able to identify this one any further than family. It’s quite a large spider though. The body measured 25mm (~1″) and with legs it was around 80mm (~3″).
Some species of Ctenidae have a nasty reputation. Suspecting at the time that this was a Ctenid, I kept a respectful distance.
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Slender Anole
January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
I photographed this slender anole, Norops limifrons, not long after sunset. This species is common and abundant in Costa Rica. It ranges from Mexico to Panama.
According to Leenders, observations suggest that this species mates for life, a rare behavior for a lizard. Energy otherwise spent by the male on defending a territory against other males is instead spent on maintaining the relationship with the female. The male and female stick together, usually never more than a few meters apart. If I’d known this at the time, I’d have looked around for this one’s mate.
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Heliconia Bug
20mm | January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
This true bug in the family Coreidae is probably Leptoscelis tricolor. It’s #5 on this plate from the electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana. It also matches these photos from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Bocas del Toro Species Database (Bocas del Toro is only 30 miles or so from where I took this photo). Finally, the Costa Rica Biodiversity Portal only shows two species for this genus. These photos from STRI eliminate the other species, Leptoscelis quadrisignata.
This coreid is commonly known as the heliconia bug simply because it’s often found feeding on heliconias.
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Mystery Exuvia
January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
What do you make of this exuvia? I found it just like this, sticking out of a large downed tree spanning a small creek.
Not sure if you can tell, but there’s a few small horns on the side and then one larger forked horn extending out from the bottom. Whatever left it squeezed out through a split on the top.
It measured 10mm in diameter, and there’s about 18mm extended out of the tree. I carefully pulled the rest out, and it measured 45mm long overall.
The whole thing
Even the rear end is somewhat bizarre looking.
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Stingless Bee Nest
January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
This stingless bee nest was nestled in the hollow of a tree. The nest entrance is only about a centimeter wide, making the bees themselves only 5 or 6mm long.
As their common name suggests, these bees have no sting to defend themselves. Knowing that, I got quite close. Harmless though they may be, they certainly look mean.
Looking mean
New arrival below
In that last photo, you can see a new arrival hanging below the nest, with pollen visible in the basket on its hind tibia.
According to Hogue, there are three genera of stingless bees. Lestrimelitta can be eliminated here because it doesn’t have a pollen basket. Of the other two, Melipona is larger, hairier and the wings don’t extend beyond the tip of the abdomen as they do here. These must then be a Trigona species.
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Gold-spotted Orb Weaver
18mm | January 20, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
This large orb weaver was hanging out in the understory. I believe this might be Eriophora nephiloides. Most online photos for the species show a brighter yellower abdomen. It appears to be quite variable. Here’s a photo of one similar to mine (along with what’s pictured at wikipedia).
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Colorful Jumping Spider
4mm | January 19, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
It’s hard to resist jumping spiders. This little one sort of has the colors of the Costa Rican flag!
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Better view of abdomen
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Hammerhead Fly
7mm | January 19, 2011 | Armonia Nature Preserve, Limon Province, Costa Rica
I spotted this little fly on the underside of a large leaf. I was really thrilled to find something so unusual. I probably spent about a half hour chasing it around from one perch to another. Luckily, it always flew just a short distance.
Dorsal view
I had heard of antler flies before, and I figured this was a good candidate to be one. Initial internet searches using that phrase didn’t turn up anything though. On a whim I tried searching for “hammerhead fly” since that seemed like an obvious common name for this fly. That turned out to be a good guess, and I found lots of similar looking images of Richardia telescopica in the family Richardiidae. I’ve been unable to eliminate the possibility of similar looking species. If not for that uncertainty, I’d have made this into an identification challenge.
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