Mastigodryas melanolomus was my first snake sighting/catch in Las Cruces! I was beginning to get jealous of the snake reports from other mentors and students… But, on the way back from a sampling period today, two of my students, Mel and David, spotted this juvenile (it still has some blotches – adults are more solid) salmon-bellied racer.
While visiting Las Alturas Biological Station and the adjacent forest in La Amistad Biosphere Preserve (an international conservation area in the Talamanca mountain range), we came across some Cedrela, a genus in the Mahogany family. These trees are valued as timber and are absolutely stunning. The preserve protects about a half million hectares of primary forest, and it was a fantastic opportunity to enjoy a little mountain of it.
This tree is endemic to Costa Rica according to the station director at Las Cruces, and my best guess at the identification was Cedrela tonduzii, which may be found elsewhere and is found in higher elevational regions (like La Amistad). I’m certainly not a skilled enough photographer to capture the tree’s beauty, so I’d encourage everyone to visit a primary, premontane wet forest and observe one of their own…
Mel, one of my students, is building a study investigating decomposition of leaves from a native tree Miconia appendiculata and an invasive bamboo Phyllostachys makinoi in streams. Here, she’s recruited some others to help her collect bamboo leaves.
OTS Las Cruces is attempting to expand and connect it’s biological reserve to another, more expansive, reserve. Currently, Las Cruces protects about 300 hectares of premontane wet forest, and they are buying surrounding pastures to build a corridor. Here are some recently purchased pastures that are still grazed. I believe, once a restoration plan is established, grazing will the halted.
The pool at this sampling site is the deepest yet: approximately 1.2 m. It’s also conveniently just down stream from a bedrock slide… Of course, we’re doing hard field work.
Premontane tropical wet forest is full of tree ferns – Cyatheales.
There’s a lot of fungus in the rainforest…
Jason and I were a bit more successful at capturing the release of this large, nectivorous (?) bat.
