Like the other OTS stations and many other field stations found in Costa Rica, Las Cruces has a black-light + white-sheet set-up to attract nocturnal insects for viewing. Here’s some quick shots I took last night.
I’ve seen and posted about Norops oxylophus on other trips, including to Hitoy Cerere, where this one was, and RBAMB.
John, an Austrailian visiting Las Cruces, set up his camera on a piece of bamboo to get some underwater shots of fish. There were a few good ones of characids investigating the camera. He intends on pioneering this method in stream ecology circles.
Nope, just a feather of Tinamu major.
The streams at Las Cruces are fairly impacted. There are a handful of smaller streams (1st-2nd order) that drain only secondary or primary forest, but most of the larger streams run through some abandoned pasture or have some sort of flow management impact like this one. My students are interested in water quality, so these impacts make for good gradients to survey.
I’m a little rusty on photographing… plus, I didn’t have my flash with me at the time of encountering this parrot snake (Leptophis sp.), so the photos I got were pretty poor. In any case, this is one of two species that occur on the caribbean slope: L. ahaetulla or L. depressirotris.
Boa and I swam in the warm waters beneath the bridge.
