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 ....

See how s/he shines!

This image shows the rainbow-petroleum like sheen of it'sskin. Perhaps s/he had recently moulted. We are very pleased to have spotted a few of these magnificent beasts at LCO over time as they are becoming increasingly rare. The problem being that, at a glance, their pattern might be confused with that of a venemous snake species, such as the Fer-de-Lance viper (and local people take no chances!)and also that they have an unfortunate habit of eating people's chickens!

Beautiful Boa

This is a beautiful Boa constrictor that Reinaldo found on one of the LCO forest trails on Sunday afternoon.

In the process of being eaten

These images show various stages in the process of a frog (Hyla rosenbergi) being eaten by a snake (Leptophis ahatulla).

Snake eating a frog

A few days ago, I was in the garden, when I heard a stange, beeping call. It was pretty loud. It turned out to be a green parrot snake, known locally as "Lora falsa" (Leptophis ahatulla), that had managed to catch a Gladiator frog, also known as Rosenberg's tree frog (Hyla rosenbergi). As the image shows, the snake had captured the frog by its rear end, and held it there clamped in it's jaws for some time, until the frog finally died. At some point (although, we did not observe this part of the process) it managed to turn the frog, and proceeded to devour it head first. It is truly amazing that this snake, not much thicker than a adult human's finger, managed to swallow what is one of the larger frog species to be found here at Los Charcos. The size ratio can clearly be seen here.

Central American Tree Boa, or "Boa Manglar" - Corralus ruschenbergerii

A Central American Tree Boa, known locally as "Boa Manglar" (we suspect probably the same individual as visited and stayed with us last year) has recently moved from the toolshed to the house, and sits in the rafters, when not out basking in the morning sun or hunting bats by night. Apparently, Corralus ruschenbergerii is one of the longest species in the genus. Ours is ca. 2 meters. We found a nifty site about these attractive snakes at: http://www.corallus.com

"Cherepo" - The Casque-Headed Lizard

With all of these reptiles you'd never guess that we specialize in plants! Here is another fine lizard encountered in the Los Charcos forest reserve. It is Corytophanes cristatus, the casque-headed lizard, locally known as "cherepo". An expert at camoflauge and a little on the vicious side, this lizard can - and most likely will - give you a nasty nip! Both sexes of this genus are crested, but only on the head, unlike the closely related Basiliscus lizards (now I'll have to get a shot of one of those posted!), which display developed crests on the head, dorsal and tail regions, but only the males.

A Red Herring... A False Chameleon!

We heard from Chris Anderson at UCBerkely (California) that our recent squamate visitor was not in fact a chameleon but a false one! Polychrus gutturosus . Our friends, Costa Rican expert herpatologists Mamoot Sasa and Frederico Bolaños, tell us that these are essentially arboreal lizards, which pass their time in the tree canopy and are therefore little known. Their distribution ranges from Honduras to Ecuador and Amozonian Peru. Here is another photo, this time showing a darker skin cast.

The Happy Herper

Nilo is wild about ALL lizards, so he was naturally delighted by this jewel!

The Changling!

It's been a few days since we've posted any news because we are working on development of the image gallery pages for the official LCO website (as well as there being some serious grant writing underway!). Whilst I was watching some birds from the balcony of the house - that has to be one of THE best nature viewing spots on the whole Peninsula - Something in the bushes caught my eye. A dead leaf? A snake? Wait... it's a strangle looking lizard. Reinaldo came up from the lower garden and managed to lure the creature down from it's perch on the end of a long stick, and it turned out to be a truly gorgeous chameleon! After more than a decade of field work in the region, Reinaldo has never seen or heard of one of these creatures, and we suspect that they must be rather rare.