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Blog Archives
Small Moth
January 18, 2011 | Gandoca-Manzanillo NWR, Limon Province, Costa Rica
I’ve been struggling to find time to prepare some longer posts. Here’s a quick post in the meantime. I like the way this little moth is holding its hind legs up flush with its abdomen.
Posted in Featured Photos
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Alpaida species?
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.
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Trapjaw Ants
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.
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Ant, Victimized by Fungus
Ant, 10mm | Fungal stalk, 5mm | January 17, 2011 | Cahuita National Park, Limon Province, Costa Rica
This unfortunate ant fell victim to a fungus, Cordyceps perhaps.
This short sequence from an episode of the Planet Earth series gives a nice introduction to the phenomenon.
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Colorful Micromoth
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.
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Identification Challenge #7 Reveal
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:
Posted in Identification Challenges
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Flashy Coreid
January 31, 2010 | Tupaciguara, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Despite their common name of leaf-footed bugs, not all coreids have flattened hind tibiae. Â This flashy specimen instead has rather impressive hind femurs.
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Lacewing under Leaf
January 31, 2010 | Tupaciguara, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Most lacewings are nondescript. So when I spotted this one on the underside of a leaf, I couldn’t pass it up. The markings are not unlike some Leucochrysa species here in the US.
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Identification Challenge #5 Reveal
As usual, Ted C. MacRae was right on all counts for this challenge:
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
I thought perhaps the swept-back antenna across the bottom third of the photo might throw people off. Not so.
Here’s a better shot of the katydid which was cooperative enough to allow some good closeups. This should put all the body parts shown above in context.
Katydid
My sister guessed a dragonfly via a Facebook comment. I can see the resemblance so not a bad guess.
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Gonyleptid Harvestman
January 28, 2010 | Caraça Natural Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil
This image of a harvestman in the family Gonyleptidae is one of my favorites from my trip to Caraça Natural Park.
As a kid, I cherished my Golden Guide to Spiders and Their Kin. Ever since I saw an illustration therein of a wild looking Gonyleptid, I’ve wanted to find one. I got excited early in the trip when I found a shed skin. On the last night, I was out with my headlamp and I encountered not just one but two!
They were both difficult to photograph. Although slow moving, they just wouldn’t stand still. I had to keep herding them back onto the trail. Eventually, this one stopped in an area that made for a relatively uncluttered background.
Posted in Featured Photos
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