Heliconia irrasa

Just so it's clear that we do have a hand in with plants (and not just with reptiles and amphibians!) here is a recent shot of Heliconia irrasa (Heliconiaceae), a small growing (to ca. 70cm tall) member of this much-loved and highly ornamental genus. This species is flowering currently in the LCO native plants garden and throughout its natural range on the Osa Peninsula.

The big one!

The bushmaster (Lachesis muta) is the largest pitviper in the New World tropics and confined to tropical lowland wet forest, ranging from southern Central America to northern South America. It is a pale fawn color with some fairly distinctive black triangular markings. Check out the webpages of Digimorph at UT Austin (under the all too aptly named "Deep Scaly Project") for some sobering craneal models and more information relating to this species.

The Bushmaster Lachesis muta

... and this was what was coiled in waiting at the base of the plant! A near 3 meters long Bushmaster pitviper (Lachesis muta) known locally as "Matabuey" (meaning "Bull killer") or "Plato Negro" ("Black Plate" - pressumably in reference to the coloration of the head). This is the only individual of this species that Reinaldo has seen in his 20 some years of field work, and we hope that's how it will stay!

On the road to San Juan

Back to the year 2002. I was pregnant with Nilo, so stayed home (at that time home was a very civilized second floor apartment in Santo Domingo de Heredia) whilst Reinaldo was in the field in Osa for 3 weeks. During that trip, whilst he was on the road for San Juan (arriba), he spotted Heliconia irrasa (a small, attractive understory forest species, which happens to be in flower currently in the LCO native plants garden and elsewhere on the peninsula). The red arrow in this image shows the position of the individual plant in question, on a steep roadside embankment ....