Loterie Nights

Located on the slope of Pic Paradis, Loterie Farm is a great place to visit tropical forest on St. Martin. I guess I haven’t really spent enough time there in general, but this is doubly true at night. So, drinks at the Tree Lounge turned into prowling the grounds with a flashlight.

I didn’t have a lot of time, so I mostly saw familiar faces: Anolis pogus getting ready to sleep, a dwarf gecko on the prowl and a few insects and spiders:

I did have some very good luck with frogs, though. Normally I don’t touch or capture the animals I find, but in order to identify two very similar whistling frogs, one needs to look at the underside, which is pretty much impossible to do without holding it. As it turns out, at least one frog I saw was Eleutherodactylus martinicensis, with telltale red on the rear legs. I also discovered that Cuban tree frogs can inflate their body like a balloon when threatened. It’s actually quite amusing, and makes them relatively transparent. This species is a relatively recent invasive that tends to be very successful and disruptive when colonizing new islands.

One Response to “Loterie Nights”

  1. Valérie Ménoret Says:

    Mark,

    Cool, I like it!
    I have a frog on my terrace. But I think it’s alway a Cuban tree frog. I send you a photo…

    KisS
    Valérie