This set of photos shows a cricket molting. The species is probably from the tribe Hapithini, although I am having some difficulty figuring out which genus and species it is, as there are few images online from this group. I have seen a number of these colorful crickets on the island, but this is the first time I’ve happened upon one while it is molting.
When I was out finding stick insects, I found more. Much more! There were, of course, spiders. I was particularly interested to see many orb weavers from the genus Eustala. Apparently, some members of this genus normally hide during the day and only spin their webs at night. This explains how they can be so common at night in an area where I rarely see them during the day.
There were a variety of other creatures, including caterpillars, strange moths, a millipede with flies on its head, and some sleepin’ lizards.
Before a few nights ago, I had only seen a walking stick (or stick insect, or phasme, or phasmid) on the island on one occasion. Apparently this was not so much because they are rare or even so difficult to spot, but I just wasn’t looking properly. By scanning the trees overhead on the roadside with a flashlight, I was able to find six or seven in perhaps an hour. My sources think it is a species that was recently discovered in Puerto Rico in the genus Clonistria. The green ones in the images below are females, and they are immature. The brown ones are the males.
Phasmids are interesting because many islands harbor endemic species, and also because they look really cool. I found these on a variety of different trees and shrubs.
I’m not sure of the actual name of the hill, but the road near it is called Round Hill Road, so that’s how I’m referring to it. It’s the hill that rises up towards Mont O’Reilly from Grand Case, behind the Caribbean Queen pharmacy. I took a walk up there a few days ago and found quite a few interesting critters. I don’t have a lot to say about them at the moment, because I need to do some serious work to identify many of them. In general, the area is pretty lush for such a low hill and there’s quite a lot to be seen there. It also offers plenty of opportunities to get poked and scratched by a variety of thorny shrubs.
I took a little walk across the main road from Grand Case to where I had found the tiny hairstreak in December, and the area was quite different. Although the rains have started and the vegetation is growing quickly there, none of the plants that made up the bulk of the flowers in December are in bloom now. And, of course, I didn’t see any of the tiny hairstreaks that were so fond of those flowers.
Leucauge argyra is probably the most commonly seen orchard spider on the island, but it was still quite a treat to see a pair mating near Grand Case the other day. I noticed a pair of the spiders on a low-hanging tree branch with a bit of webbing on the leaves. The smaller male was tugging at the lines of silk, presumably to send a message of his intent to the larger female. Spiders often use this type of cue when courting, which varies from web-tugging to dancing and leg waving, depending on the species. The main benefits are establishing that the desired partner is willing to mate, and is of the same species, because each species tends to have a distinctive mating ritual.
In this case, the female was initially facing away from the male, but after some persistent signaling, turned around and spread her front legs, allowing the male to approach. As you can see in the photos, the male spider (on the right) has pedipalps full of sperm. Pedipalps are leg-like appendages in the front of the body, and the tips of the “loaded” pedipalps look like small red balls. The goal for the male is to inject his sperm from his pedipalps into the epigyne of the female, which is located on the underside of her abdomen.
It was a difficult thing to photograph, particularly due to the extreme heat, with just enough breeze to blow the branch in and out of focus, but not enough to cool down the photographer. Immediately after what I believe was a successful coupling, the male disappeared.
Even when there are no turtle tracks, the trip to look for them can be very enjoyable!
On yet another hot and sticky day I went on a short walk in the Grand Case area. My first stop was the bridge, where the canal to the airport salt pond had been opened recently. Several royal terns were happily fishing there and I was happy to stop and take a few photos of them.
As I continued through town I ran into a couple friends, one of which pointed out a cherry bush on the hill and asked me to bring some back if I went up that way. A cherry bush is actually a cashew tree, and the cashews themselves actually hang from the bottom of what looks like a vaguely heart-shaped fruit. Actually, apparently the cashew itself is the fruit, and the fruit-like part is a pseudo-fruit. Unprepared, the cashew is actually poisonous, but the pseudo-fruit is sweet and delicious. The tree itself was popular with a particular cerambycid (longhorn) beetle, Trachyderes succinctus and what seems to be a braconid wasp. There were also a number of fruit flies and small beetles eating the fallen fruit.
I stopped to take a couple photos of Grand Case before returning with my cherry fruit, sweaty but well-rewarded.
In La Grotte du Puits des Terres Basses, there are a number of solution cavities in the ceiling. These are hemispherical depressions created when water dissolves the rock. They seem to be a popular site for maternity colonies, where mother bats raise their young. In some of the photos below, you can see some of the young bats, still mostly hairless (chauves-souris qui sont vraiment chauve). The bats seem to be Brachyphylla cavernarum. In addition, particularly on the baby bats, insect parasites can clearly be seen. Also featured are some of the various invertebrates found in the cave, including cave crickets, the giant centipede, spiders and snails.
Last week several of my attempts to survey for sea turtle tracks were thwarted by rain, but finally I did get a day that was merely intermittently drizzly and made the trek out. Although again there were no tracks, it was a good chance to see the island while it was damp. At the small pond near the school in Cul de Sac frogs, snails and flatworms were out and about. There were also plenty of spiders and insects hoping to catch a few rays of sun.
