Tag: Piedras Blancas National Park

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Weird Insect! Trychopeplus laciniatus

On one of the trails at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge at Piedras Blancas National Park, I found this mossy root-like or vine-like “thing” walking around under a leaf (must have sticky feet). 🙂 I just posted it on iNaturalist, where the A I said it was pretty confident to put it in the Genus Trychopeplus, a genus of insects. I searched around more on iNat and decided that the closest match for a species is Trychopeplus laciniatus (linked to that page in iNaturalistCR. There is very little info online and no “common name” in Spanish or English, but mine matches most of the photos found of that species.

On land it would be kind of like a mossy “Walking Stick Insect” or to me almost looks more like the underwater “Sea Dragon” creatures found in the oceans somewhere, but I know nothing about those and didn’t try to research. 🙂

It is just one of the many fun things I keep finding here in Costa Rica and will continue to share on this blog. For other interesting insects I’ve photographed in Costa Rica, go the the More Insects Gallery. 🙂

Trychopeplus laciniatus species of insect at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Golfito, Costa Rica

2 more photos . . .

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Rainforest Lizards

There are oh so many more lizards in the rainforest, but they were never my target for photos, but here’s a Whiptail and adult & juvenile shots of a Common Basilisk. In earlier years I looked for lizards more and you can check out my LIZARDS Gallery for more than 25 species.

Juvenile Common Basilisk, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas NP, Golfito, Costa Rica

2 more images . . .

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Rainforest Dragonflies

There are a lot of dragonflies around all the different water locations and because we have the dragonfly specialist active in iNaturalist Costa Rica, I wait until after I post the photos there for him to confirm or give the species or even say if I have them in the right family! 🙂 I’m more confident about that amber wing identification, but not the others. And I’m including two reds here, because I think they are two different species.

One of theTropical Dashers – Genus Micrathyria, Dragonflies at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica

3 more dragonflies below . . .

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Most visible Bird . . .

. . . at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge is surprisingly also one of the largest! (a little larger than toucans.) And maybe size does help with visibility, 🙂 plus the fact that the ones living there are used to people (all nature-lovers) and thus don’t run at the site of a dangerous human! 🙂

The Great Curassow, Crax rubra (eBird link) is a tropical pheasant-like bird found from eastern Mexico throughout Central America to the northwestern edges of Columbia and Ecuador. I see them in most of the protected forests and national parks I visit in Costa Rica. See some of my other photos in the Great Curassow Gallery. Just another of the many nature joys in Costa Rica! 🙂 And yes, they are similar to the Crested Guan (my gallery link) also here and about the same size, but with a bright red waddle. I heard guans on this trip but neither saw nor got photos. Both of these birds remind North Americans of Wild Turkeys, which we do not have here.

Great Curassow male & female, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas, Golfito, Costa Rica, on a stream bank behind the dining hall.

And a gallery of 5 shots . . . (click an image to enlarge)

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7 Species of Hummingbirds . . .

. . . is one thing I photographed at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge last week and they are all 7 together in a gallery below this email photo . . .

Scaly-breasted Hummingbird, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica (most frequently seen there)
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Toucan Rendezvous

For maybe an hour this morning, two Yellow-throated Toucans called out to each other from two different trees behind my cabin. Finally, they got together in one tree, though my last pix indicates that one is shy, hiding behind an air plant with her back to the other. Always fun to observe nature in action! 🙂 This was one of 11 bird species I photographed today, here at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. A nice day! And though cloudy most of the day, no rain. Below this photo for the email is a photo of the two together or almost together! 🙂

Yellow-throated Toucan, Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Piedras Blancas National Park, Costa Rica
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The Birds of Esquinas

I think I’ve shown 5 favorite birds on their own individual blog posts, now here they are with all the other birds in a gallery of 18, a fraction of the 50 species I got on my last trip there, which I will blame on both climate change and the lack of a mangrove boat trip this time, though there were still fewer birds at the lodge this time, just like there are fewer birds at my house this year! Here’s one bird for the emailed version and then a gallery of 18 total birds to follow.

White-tipped Dove on a Panama Hat Flower at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, Golfito.
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Renata Satyr

This Renata Satyr, Yphthimoides renata, was spotted on the campus of the La Gamba Field Station down the road from Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. It is a rainforest research station for the University of Vienna, Austria and that is why German is spoken in that area as much or more than English along with the Spanish of course! And I refused to put it in the headline, but this is another “first time seen” butterfly for me! 🙂 And I will do a post on the research station later. And for the butterfly enthusiasts, yes, you need the side view of Satyrs for good ID and by blowing up my one angled side shot I was able to confirm the proper eye spots and lines to assure this identity. 🙂 Another Central American butterfly!

Renata Satyr, La Gamba Field Station, Piedras Blancas NP, Golfito, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Renata Satyr, La Gamba Field Station, Piedras Blancas NP, Golfito, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

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Another New Butterfly!

I’m slow getting all the photos processed and identifications made is why I keep coming up with new things! 🙂 This butterfly is not one I saw for the first time at Esquinas but have identified correctly for the first time, as I’m getting a little better at ID. It is a Hewitson’s Longwing, Heliconius hewitsoni that I saw in the understory deep in the forest on the Manakin Trail the other day at Esquinas Rainforest Lodge. I often compare my photos with not only my butterfly book photos, but online photos and even my own older photos which is when I discovered I had seen him before at Punta Leona but misidentified! And because the one at Esquinas was damaged and not in the best light, I am including the much better photo I made at Punta Leona for comparison and I will have to go back to all the places that photo appears and re-identify it! Whew! And because it is such a better photo, I will show it first and this is my first time to properly identify it.

Hewitson’s Longwing, first photographed at Punta Leona (near Jaco) and just now properly identifying.

Now see three weaker photos I made in the dark understory of the rainforest at Esquinas Lodge for comparison. I am now certain of this new identification and the website I volunteer for will have to add this new species because it is not now included, meaning that my photos will be the first ones on butterfliesandmoths.org. And this is not the first time I’ve introduced a new species there, thanks to the incredible variety of species in Costa Rica! Many are endemic to just Costa Rica or sometimes, like this one, endemic to Costa Rica & Panama’s Pacific Coast.

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