Costa Rica (continued)

COSTA RICAN TREES

This tree is called a walking palm. The were very common in the La Selva forest that we visited. Notice that the roots extend from high on the trunk. These trees can actually relocate themselves when they find sunlight. The canopy is so thick in the rainforest, that these trees have adapted to seek out sunlight. They will grow new roots in that direction, while the roots "behind" will die off, thus allowing the tree to move over time. Fascinating, huh?

Roots that grow from higher on the trunk like this are called aerial roots.

The roots on this tree are called butress roots because of their shape. We say a tree that was about 400 years old (seen below), called the mother tree, near the Areal volcano area. It's hard to even get the scale for this tree, since it is so huge, but you can see my classmate in front of the enormous butress roots.

So why is this tree called the mother tree you ask? It's not because it is so old, but because it is home to many creatures and other plants that grow on it called epiphytes.

It's hard to appreciate in this picture, but epiphytes are plants that grow on a host tree. They do not send their roots into the tree, rather they use the dirt and detrius from the forest that lands in the tree for its nutrition.

Another type of tree is called a strangler fig and they do just what their name says. They strangle a host tree until it is covered and slowly kills the host tree. In the end you can see sort of a hollow tube with holes in it. This was demonstrated to us one night in Monteverde when our guide crawled inside one of these well developed "tubes" and shined his flashlight through the openings. It looked like nature's cathedral. I've rarely seen anything as beautiful!

So the trees of Costa Rica were not only beautiful, but there was much to learn about them!

River @ La Selva Biological Station: Organization for Tropical Studies

Costa Rica 2014

1st Stop: La Selva

So most of you know I went to Costa Rica earlier this month on an Earth Expedition with Miami University of Ohio. This is the last class before my capstone and I will graduate this December. I was gone for 10 days and would like to share some of the sites and experiences I had while in Costa Rica.

La Selva was our first stop on our trip. This is a very unique region for biodiversity and the scientific research that goes on there. In fact, the original concept of the *Global Amphibian Decline* started here with Dr. Allen Pounds and his observations of the disappearing Golden Toad (Incilius periglenes). He first noticed something was amiss in the 1980s and when he shared his findings with the global scientific amphibian community: they agreed that they too were observing decreasing populations. 

Golden Toad (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

La Selva is home to the Organization for Tropical Studies, which has several research stations around Costa Rica. La Selva is considered a lowland rainforest, so it's warmer than the higher Monteverde, but just as wet. In fact one night we had a heck of a thunderstorm. I've been in storms before, but never one quite like this. I actually screamed out load as one of the thunder booms let loose, but no one in our cabin heard me because the sound was so loud. 

We saw a plethora of diversity at La Selva. Here are a few of the sights that I was privy to:

Howler Monkey genus (Alouatta monotypic in subfamily Alouattinae)
These monkeys mate for life. When the male and female choose one another, it takes them a few weeks to work out their song, which is unique only to them. It's quite beautiful (and loud) if you have never witnessed it. Check out your local zoo!

Our guide said there's literally thousands of types of butterflies and moths, so identifying them is very difficult: even for experts!

Coati in the tree (genera Nasua and Nasuella, also known as coatimundi)
These fellows are related to our raccoon in the U.S. They are every bit the nuisance that raccoon can be to us.

This is the outside pattern of the Blue Morpho Butterfly (Morpho peleides). These butterflies are HUGE and have a beautiful blue irridescent color on the inside of their wings (as shown below). It looks very similar to a moth, doesn't it?

Some kind of rainforest treefrog (unknown species)

When going out at night to look at the frogs, the thing that is SO STRIKING is how very small these frogs are. We always see pictures of them that are very close up, making them look much larger than they are when, in fact, they are about as large as your fingernail.

 

I will be posting more as I can. Since I will be graduating in December, I have much to do and have to get to my mom's medicaid application process, work and do all of the regular stuff like laundry. :-)  

Turnbull Wildlife Refuge

 Brown Susan

 Barry focused on his photography.

 Beautiful Turnbull Landscape

 Porcupine: We also saw coyote, pelicans and deer.

 Perfect Imperfection

 Sweet.

 Crazy hair plants (Do you know what they are?)

 My favorite picture of the day

New Blog

I know, here I am again moving. Something happened to my old blog where it still looks published, but I cannot seem to get into it. So here I am. Let's get to it.