Puerto Rico II: Herptiles!

This is your second "guest lecture" from the tiny mountain town of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico (soon to be sister-city of Burlington, Vermont!)

 Sounds of the early evening - the coquís singing. 

Cane Toad - Bufo marinus

Cane Toad - Bufo marinus

Unidentified lizard

Common Coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui)

Common Coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui)

What: The Common Coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is hands-down the national symbol of Puerto Rico. I am serenaded by them every evening from my urban apartment - I can only imagine that their ko-KEE call would be deafening in the forest. I also discovered a large Cane Toad (Bufo marinus) in the small man-made pool outside my house. I am still not abel to identify this Unknown Lizard ("largato" en español), which is one of many I see scurrying about the open areas all day long - I still have yet to actually catch one - they are fast!


Ecological notes: I've learned that the Common Coquí is native to Puerto Rico, but has become something of a nuisance in other tropical environments into which it has been introduced. The Eleutherodactylus genus (name coming from the Greek for "free-toed" - nearly all have unwebbed feet) is the largest genus of vertebrates in the world with about 700 species (but now, as with many re-classification schemes, the genus is being divided into several more distinct sub-genera). The coquí is assuredly a tree frog - hence its webbed feet. The Eleutherodactylus are one of the few frog genera wherein all the frogs go through what is called "direct development," meaning that they skip a tadpole stage, and are born as very very tiny frogs (full size female common coquís are only about 40mm, or 1.5in). The Cane Toad is an exotic species, coming originally from Oceania, and now seen all over the island of Puerto Rico, in addition to the only other toad (which is native), the Puerto Rican Crested Toad. There are about 40 different types of lizards on the island of Puerto Rico, depending on how you count (some people draw distinctions between iguanas and skinks when talking about "lizards").


Where: Once again, all in my backyard right here in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico - in the Central Cordillera mountain range of Puerto Rico. Elevation about 1,600 ft. 

Tortoise beetles

What: A few years ago I was looking through Audobon's guide to insects and I came across a photo of a tortoise beetle. They're hilariously improbable looking animals, somehow a cross between a lady beetle and an adorable, cartoonish turtle, and I immediately wanted to find one. I had to wait, and it wasn't until last year that my patience was rewarded. When I spotted it I dashed inside to grab my camera and when I came back it had vanished. Last week I was out at Rock Point at the marching band meadow, which is just full of milkweed, and I spotted an amazing type of tortoise beetle. It was a metallic silver, not very camouflaged on the underside of the milkweed leaf. As soon as I got close it popped off. I spotted a few more and the same thing happened every time.

I've been transplanting milkweed (Asclepias sp.) and intermediate dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum, apo=away from, cynum=dog, like canine, in reference to its toxicity to dogs and cannabinum in reference to its similarity to hemp for use in making cordage) to my front yard for a couple of years now (it's my fiber garden). Yesterday while hanging out on my front yard I spotted a mottled tortoise beetle (Deloyala guttata) on our morning glory vines. Mottled tortoise beetles are common on morning glories (Ipomoea purpurea, in the same genus as sweet potato) and its relatives (in the family Convolvulaceae). I grabbed my camera and took some shots and the below video of the little guy taking flight. 

A couple minutes later I was showing Zac the milkweed seedlings when I spotted another!! tortoise beetle. This one, a golden tortoise beetle (Charidotella sexpunctata), quietly deposited a chunk of frass (the entomologists delicate word for bug poop), and after a minute flew off. 

Ecological notes: Tortoise beetles are part of the leaf beetle family (Chrysomelidae). On the whole this group superficially resembles lady beetles. They're strict vegetarians, both as larvae and adults, and are often host specific to their food of choice. They over winter as adults, and as I noted above, when disturbed will just drop off the plant. I've seen this repeatedly with the simple and charismatic milkweed leaf beetle (Labidomera clivicollis), a common leaf beetle that feeds on the toxic sap of milkweed and has the exact same coloration as a monarch butterfly; if it shows up in my fiber garden I'll be sure to post a photo. Larvae will cover themselves in fecal matter to hide from would-be predators - not sure I'd go hunting for piles of poop.

Where: My frontyard.

June bugs

What: Just in time for the end of June, I heard this June bug (Polyphylla sp., poly = many + phylla = leaf referring to the many "leaves" that fork out at the tips of its antennae) before I spotted it. I finally found it tucked into the ground, head up, butt half in. When I rediscovered the same individual it was again nearly vertical, but this time more submerged with its abdomen in the ground and head barely above. The beetle itself is rather large, about an inch long and almost half that around. Its elytra (hard coverings beetles have over wings) were a dullish brown with irregular speckling that seemed more from wear and tear than genetic programming. When it made its noise, it sounded more like a wounded baby mouse than an insect. It made the sound in response to my footsteps and when provoked (i.e. poked with a blade of grass) it repeated the noise. Seems like an odd defense, and made me wonder what other defenses it had to back up the aggressive noise. A little research unearthed some anecdotes of pets going after these large insects then requiring vet visits for swollen faces. So the sound must be some sort of deterrent rather than mate attractant.

I watched the beetle to figure out how it made the noise and it appears as though it makes it by puffing out its abdomen and then sucking it back in, rubbing the top of it against its wings as it does to make a scratchy noise. Pretty wild.

Ecological notes: Males have very robust enlarged feathers on their antennae for picking up whifs of the female pheromones. This one, with much smaller antennae was most certainly a female. Most of the beetle's life cycle is spent underground as large white larvae with yellowish to orange heads - hard to miss. The females lay their eggs in the soil, which makes me wonder if the defensive posturing of the female was her actually defending her egg-laying territory from an intruder (me).

Where: My backyard (maybe yours too?)

Other notes: Heard my first cicada of the year today!

Bird poop

What: I was hauling a 5-gallon bucket of water in to Crow's Path on Sunday in prep for our first day of summer camp, when I spotted this little guy. It only caught my attention because it was soooo white. It looked exactly like a pile of bird poop. Even the head has black ridges that mimic the stool part of bird droppings (the stool is coiled and green/brown/purplish, depending on diet).

I apologize for the blurriness of the photo - for a better detailed image google "beautiful wood nymph moth" or "Eudryas grata". I met up with Zac and about an hour later we came back and the moth was still there (we took the photo with his phone). I finished getting the site ready then went for a run. At the end of my run it had started to rain and when I checked in on the moth it was gone. I spotted this individual the edge of a field. According to my research, the most reliable indicator of where you'll find this species in our area is the presence of grape and Virginia creeper, both of which are hosts to the caterpillar.

I'm a bit perplexed by its latin name, Eudryas grata. "Eu-" as a prefix means good, pleasant, or normal (as in the base condition). Think euphonic (pleasant + sound), eutrophic (well + nourished), or euphemism (good + speaking, or using a pleasing word in place of a less ominous/offensive one). Dryas comes from the Greek for wood nymph. Dryads were hard to find woodland critters that one only caught brief glimpse of. Grata indicates "acceptable".

Paddling the Winooski River

What: A couple of days ago, Fish and I paddled the 10 miles from Salmon Hole down to the Winooski's mouth at Delta Park. As the sun set we heard more and more beavers slapping their tails at us. The birds were out, but the heat made everyone a bit slower. This turkey vulture was standing on the bank and didn't seem to mind until I was downstream.

Our last few miles we paddled in the dark before setting up camp along the beach, with a sky full of stars over head. We woke up Friday morning to a pair of baby ravens making a ruckus, and then paddled to Burlington, ate breakfast at Skinny Pancake, and then leisurely made our way to the south end of Shelburne Bay, rounding out a 22 mile trip. The weather was hot, and the mosquitoes and deer flies were hungry and irritable. It hasn't rained in forever, so the Winooski River was about as slow moving and low as I've seen it. Good luck set in while on the lake, where we enjoyed a strong, favorable tailwind blowing out of the Northeast, and we were probably paddling faster on the lake with the wind than on the river with the lazy current.

Ecological notes: I was picking up a lot on different signs of old high water lines. We found a bank burrow from a beaver that was about 2' higher than the water. A beaver would only dig a den below where the water line would consistently be to ensure that the entrance was always concealed. Maybe a young one that wasn't expecting the water level to drop so much had made the bank earlier in the spring.

Other signs included debris lines of branches strewn along the banks at different heights and sand bars that were exposed on the downstream side of islands. One of my favorite signs was all the silver maple seedlings sprouting up at distinctly different terraces along the bank as in the photo above that shows two such terraces. My guess it that they correspond to two rain events. The upper "terrace" of seedlings being deposited first in a big rain storm. Rains could have washed loads of the seed crop into the river as it swelled. Seeds were deposited at the edge of the river, particularly on the inside of the river's turn (called a point bar, or erosional area, as opposed to the outside of the turn where water moves quickest, called the cut bank; cut banks usually have steep slopes as opposed to the slow sloping banks of a point bar).

Water level subsided and the seedlings germinated. Another smaller rain storm could have brought the water level up again, but not quite up to the level of the first surge. The next batch of seedlings are much smaller, many of which still had the dicotyledons (the first leaves that look more like bananas than maple leaves), the upper level seedlings had two to three pairs of mature leaves and thickening stems.

Where: Winooski River near Ethan Allen Homestead