Another marine decapod, this crab hunkered down while I moved the camera closer to get a shot. Fascinating camouflage.
A new Osa cichlid
We may have found a new cichild species for the Osa during a trip to Rio Claro. The book Mike used for identification appeared to recognize only one cichlid as inhabiting the Osa, and picture are two distinct species we caught in Rio Claro. I currently don’t have their full IDs, but I believe the one on the right is A. sajica, which was previously known from Osa.
A couple of birds
I haven’t seen all that many birds yet and I’ve captured even fewer with photographs, likely because I am usually preoccupied with ground dwelling herps. Here are two that I’ve gotten photographs of though. One is a fly catcher that I have yet to identify (mostly because I’m writing in a bed and the bird book is in the closet…. I guess I’ll call it a Great Kiskadee, although it’s a bit small for that), and the other is a Cherries tanager. Maybe I can get some help on the identifications… Update – it´s a great kiskadee…lame.
Mullet
A fish caught in Río Tortugo with a hilarious common name.
Río Abuela
A river Mike sampled for fish was named after the land it drained: Brian’s grandmother’s house and surrounding farm. Brian, Mike’s assistant and friend, is an 18 year-old Costa Rican born and raised on the Osa. His grandmother’s farm, pictured here, was unbearably hot. The picture doesn’t really do the terrain justice; are there any suggestions on how to reduce a flattening effect in photos with lots of depth of field? (or maybe that’s impossible without stereo-lenses)
Crustacean Newbies
Allison and Erin handle one of their first freshwater shrimp out of Rio Drake, a river draining agricultural land on the Osa Penninsula that Mike wanted to sample for fish.
San Jose
Upon arrival in San Jose, Mike and I made some exchanges at the bank, resulting in a a large stack of colones. I moved from San Jose last night and am currently at one of my mentor’s parents-in-law’s house in San Pedro, a 10 min bus ride to UCR instead of a 45 min one. Plus there is good, grandmotherly, cooked typical tico (Costa Rican) breakfast and dinner.
Hermit crab
Maybe I’m feeling crabby this morning.
Dry Season Crabs
At Campanario, in the Osa Peninsula, there were land crabs everywhere during the night. They were beautifully colored and I caught a couple of them consuming fallen, decomposing leaves near a stream, which is of course interesting to me. They were much more abundant this March than in January.
Farewell Rio WTF
My first post from Costa Rica is a farewell to the first leg of my trip. This morning, at 4:30 AM, Allison and Erin climbed into a taxi for the airport, and so ended our three week excursion to the Osa and premontane rain-forest. I find it fitting then to post a picture of the four of us posing atop the first cascade of several in a river we dubbed Rio WTF. The river’s original name (Koyok) was immediately revoked when we realized that we would need to climb two waterfalls and a mountain to collect leaf samples from it (Mike and I were able to do it in under 10 sec with minor injuries). If you’re not aware of what the new name’s acronym stands for, google it.
