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On Tuesday, as soon as Patricia was off to school, a taxi arrived to take Grace and I to the field, about five miles away. But first we had to find me some rubber boots since in Atlantico, the Caribbean Slope, everyone wore rubber boots if they weren’t indoors or on the street. It seems that Ticos (Costa Ricans) have small feet. We ended up going to five different places in a town of about 1000 inhabitants before finding a pair that was just barely large enough to fit my size 10.5 feet. As soon as we had them in hand, we were delivered to a friend’s large finca, half of which is pastureland and half secondary forest. This is where Grace frequently comes to get new genetic material to prevent inbreeding problems.
Since we only had about an hour of exploring before it started to rain, and we were to be picked up at 11:00 and taken to lunch by Grace’s sister and her husband, we didn’t get to see much. The few images I took then are included here with Wednesday’s activities.
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Oscar arrived at 5:00 AM to pick up Grace’s shipment for CRES. Soon after, the same driver appeared and we were quickly gone, I taking my entire luggage since I would not be returning. He took us to the bus station in Guacimo; we then boarded a bus to Guapiles, and then took another cab to the Mariposario, on the main highway a couple of miles out of town. |
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Annalive Briceño (left) owns the establishment, originally started with her husband who is no longer present. Here she not only has a butterfly house but also a frog house where she raises and exhibits poison-arrow frogs (Dendrobates). A unique woman, Annalive also dreams of having a fungus garden, certainly a possibility in this soggy environment. |
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While she and Grace fixed a pot of coffee and some breakfast, I nosed around. In the frog house, she currently has two species—the Green Poison-arrow frog (Dendrobates auratus) and the Granular poison-arrow frog (Dendrobates granuliferus)—both of which had recently reproduced as it was much easier to see youngsters than adults. |
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Annalive is not currently producing butterflies for export so didn’t have many species. Most common in the butterfly house were owl butterflies (Caligo eurilochus sulanus) feeding on banana. The larvae are cryptic—the immatures clustering under leaves; the matures at the base of the tree during daylight hours. |
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After breakfast, we headed into the forest across the highway. It too was secondary forest, nature now sharing itself with cattle. Fortunately it was not raining so we had about two hours to explore the area and do some basic bugwatching. Although there weren’t many things on the wing except mosquitoes, we did find plenty of interest under and within decaying logs. |
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Along this abandoned road, growing where the light was a little brighter, this passionflower (Passiflora vitafolia) caught our attention. We broke off from the road into the forest to start looking for anything which Grace and Annalive might add to their collections. |
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The blue jeans frog (Dendrobates pumilio) was fairly common here. We saw at least a dozen, hopping around in the leaf litter.
Next page
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