Below are a few photos from around Grand Case: flowers and butterflies, a dead pigeon with its beak tucked behind its wing, a wasp, a bee-imitating fly popping a wheelie, damselflies in two colors, two spiders sharing a nest, an ant getting something from a white blob creature, dragonflies and monarchs making love.
Hundreds of baby spiders scramble in a mass like schooling fish, most will die before they even approach adulthood. A great southern white flaps itself to exhaustion and its wings to tatters while caught in a web. Tiny butterfly eggs are laid at the ends of delicate stalks for their protection. A plant is deformed by tumor-like growths. Ants guard aphids in exchange for their sweet excretions. The struggle for existence carries on at Goat Mountain.
In other news, I finished the best travel book of all time, The Voyage of the Beagle and I’m reading On the Origin of Species which continually amazes me, particularly when I remember that Darwin knew basically nothing about the mechanics that make his theory possible. Genetics? Carbon dating of fossils? Darwin unlocked the most important mystery of biology during a time when folks thought miasma caused tropical diseases.
In addition to the usual suspects (goat skulls, hairstreaks, etc.) I also spotted a new (to me) butterfly, the Long-tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus), and after some considerable stalking was able to get a couple photos good enough to make the ID, but certainly not worth framing.
In this installment of Saint Martin creatures, we have:
Last night I made a brief excursion to photograph some nocturnal animals and found a fair number of them on a short walk. I encountered several beetles, the large black one with the iridescence gave off a very strong minty, but musky smell when touched. There were also a couple species of moths, which hopefully I can identify later, a hemipteran and a wasp. The best insect was a mantis fly, which is a name given to many insects from a family related to lacewings that have front legs that resemble those of the praying mantis – which is a great example of convergent evolution, and looks cool.
The most interesting sighting was an anole in the process of eating a beetle. I was also struck by the shyness of geckos. For an animal that can speed across any surface with velcro toes, it seems like they should be less afraid of a passing photographer. They are, however, the only lizard that seems unafraid to sit on a wall where they are entirely uncamouflaged.
Below are a variety of creatures seen where we are staying, many of which were on our veranda. Included are: a fly, the black witch, the hieroglyphic moth, a checkered swallowtail chrysalis, a small spider with a fly it caught, some other moths and a termite.
Madam J discovered this small spider in our bathroom. I’m not sure what kind it is, but it had a cute way of wiping its face with its front paws, or whatever those things are called. I also really like the array of eyes, which seems to include four in front and two on either side. If anyone’s an arachnologist, send in your identification tips!
The ghost condos of Happy Bay are inhabited primarily by wasps, builders of nests in both paper and mud. One notable exception was a large pile of millipede bodies on the porch of one unit. The condos themselves were abandoned near-completion with a just a bit of wiring and finishing left to do. New bathtubs sit in bathrooms waiting to be installed. Was it just an inconvenient hurricane that stopped development, or were there other forces at play?
After visiting La Savane, I walked the Rue de Friars’ Bay and some side roads in that area. On the hills above Happy Bay, I tried to photograph the large sulfurs that live on the island, but found it difficult as they would only alight for a moment at a time. The wind made it difficult to capture the small, odd-shaped spiders on the hill as well. In the end, my easiest subject was the largest and most succulent one I encountered.
La Savanne is, I suppose, a suburb of Grand Case. I’m not sure if there is an actual town there or just a sign. At any rate, today I spent some hours in a field there and saw many interesting creatures.
My favorites were:
Additionally, there were many familiar butterflies, some other small beetles, some very small freshwater fish and a horse skull guarding a garden.
(Madam J, Marc, Stuart (English) and Aure (French) eating dessert.)
Marc: I think these came out okay, it’s the first time I made crépes.
Stuart: These are the dog’s bollocks! Aure, how do you say that in French?
Aure: De crépe.
A few days ago I noticed some chrysalides on the side of our building. they were connected at the bottom, with a line of silk acting as a sling to hold them more or less upright against the building. Two were vacated, one was still occupied. While photographing them, a young boy on a bicycle came by to investigate and we showed them to him. Suddenly, he grabbed the living one, tore it off the side of the building, threw it to the ground and rode off on his bike. Madam J and I collected the chrysalis and I affixed it to our screen using dental floss in a way that approximated its natural orientation.
Last night, while having the diving instructors Stuart and Aure over for dinner, I noticed the polydamas swallowtail (Battus polydamus) checkered swallowtail (Papilio demoleus) crawling on the floor with half-inflated wings. I eventually coaxed it to hang from the curtain, where it might be able to pump its wings out fully, but as of this morning, it seems to be permanently crippled. The front wings are relatively well formed, but the back wings remain crumpled. I also noticed a large wound on its abdomen. We named it De Crépe.
Update: De Crépe is a checkered swallowtail (Papilio demoleus) which is an Asian species that, according to one article was only first discovered in the Caribbean in 2004.
