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.

Carnivorous wasp

Whilst the snake (Leptophis ahatulla) was eating the frog (Hyla rosenbergi) a carnivorous wasp arrived on the scene and was attempting to join in with the feast. These wasps are known locally as "Carniceros". Please contact us if you think you recognise the species of wasp.

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.