August 6,
2015
We had a
very full day today – and I took far too many photos. So I’ll have to keep the
captions short on this one. We started the day on the second level of Tower I.
At eye-level here is the canopy of a Zanthoxylum tree (probably Z. rhoifolium), in perfect fruit right
now – and it was almost never completely free of birds while we were here. The
most amazingly cooperative birds were a pair of White-browed Purpletufts, and I
caught one just as it took off, showing its namesake.
And here’s a
few other birds I got photographs of here:
Dusky-chested
Flycatcher
Purple
Honeycreeper
Scarlet
Macaws
Southern
Scrub-Flycatcher
Yellow-browed
Tody-Flycatcher
Yellow-margined
Flycatcher
We then
walked the Saleiro loop, and when we arrived at the saleiro (“salt lick,”
actually a mud wallow with slightly saline soil), a herd of White-lipped
Peccaries were starting to come in. They first spooked away, but when we
climbed the little observation platform, they came in, perhaps up to 80
individuals.
After they
departed, we enjoyed watching the many butterflies taking advantage of the moisture
and salts left behind.
Adelpha epione, a sister with no orange
band
Baeotus aeilus, Amazon Beauty
Heading back
to the lodge for lunch, I flushed this tiny metalmark, Sarota lasciva.
And also
flushed was this Rufescent Tiger-Heron from a small puddle of water in a forest
stream that is normally totally dry this time of year. I was amazed it still
had water in it this late in the dry season.
This click
beetle (family Elateridae) appears to be Semiotus
distinctus. It often comes to the fermented fruit that we have put out for
butterflies, and that’s what it was on here.
Our local
guide and my friend Jorge spotted this snake lying across the trail; it appears
to probably be Philodryas viridissimus,
a type of rear-fanged colubrid that could deliver a dangerous bite.
After lunch
I went back on the trail with my friend Claudia who had spotted this dead
weevil with a pathogenic fungus growing out of it. Susanne Sourell has already
identified the fungus for me as Ophiocordyceps
curculionum, but this asexual fruiting stage also has been giving a
separate scientific name, Hymenostilbe
sp.
I checked the
puddle parties on my own finding this Starry Night Cracker (Hamadryas laodamia) female.
This
gorgeous lemon-colored caterpillar had me wishing I were here for a few weeks
so I could rear it to adulthood.
This huge,
strange brushfoot had me totally confounded. It is Napeocles jucunda, so very unlike any other butterfly, and the only
member of its genus. Apparently it only very rarely comes to mud.
In the
afternoon the whole group set out for a delightful boat ride up river. Just up
from our lodge was this juvenile Great Black Hawk.
We stayed
until after dark, seeing a Great Potoo and countless Cuvier's Dwarf Caimans.
After
dinner, I wasn’t nearly ready to go to bed. I checked the moth sheet and saw
two odd but tiny things. One is this strange planthopper of some kind, perhaps
a nymphal stage of a fulgorid?
The other
was this moth that appears to mimic a small net-winged beetle.
And there
was one large visitor, this sphinx month Xylophanes
pluto.
I also
checked the lights on the walkway to the floating deck, where I found another
green sphinx moth, Eumorpha capronnieri.
I also found
a silk moth, Therinia sp.
Heading to
the boat ramp, I spotted a scorpion on the side of a tree trunk; This may be Tityus strandi.
Then I found
another, this speckled one more resembling Tityus
silvestrus though I’m far from certain that that is the correct name.
Finally, I
was amazed at the variety but lack of numbers of pyraloid moths on the beach.
It seemed there was just one each of at least nine species here, all of which
may remain unidentified for some time.
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