La Reserva Ecologica Costanera Sur

Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I spent this past weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina before embarking on a one-week whirlwind tour to visit field sites in several other parts of the country.  It was supposed to be a short rest stop, but I can do nothing of the sort when there are exotic lands to explore.  Despite its rank as the fourth largest city in South America and the location of my hotel in the heart of downtown, only a short walk was needed to arrive at Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, a 350-hectare park located on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.  Originating as a debris field from construction during the 1970s, sedimentation and subsequent revegetation have created a naturalistic setting reminiscent of the original wet Pampas grasslands that occurred in the area.

A system of levees with trails courses through the wet grasslands.

Coursing through the area is a system of levees topped with gravel walking/biking trails that have become flanked with woody vegetation.  Native species such as ceibo (Erythrina crista-galli) and palo borracho (Chorisia speciosa) are common, although exotics such as Canary palms (above photo) have also become established.  In total, more than 11 km of trails are available, and having as much time as I desired on Sunday to explore the area, I walked every one of them once (and some twice) for a total hike of close to 15 km (not counting my morning walk to the area and then back to my hotel during late afternoon).  I wouldn’t say the area was teeming with insects, and those that I did encounter are not too dissimilar from those I am more familiar with in North America.  However, this is the southern Neotropics, so just about everything I encountered was something I had not seen before.  I went photography-crazy, snapping more than 250 shots on the day (and keeping about 100).

Leptodactylus ocellatus (rana criolla).

This frog was the first thing I encountered, even before walking through the Reserve gates.  Using the galleries at this fan site I believe it to represent Leptodactylus ocellatus (rana criolla, or “Creole frog”).  He was a sad sight when I first saw him – dry and dusty on the sidewalk outside of the Reserve.  I passed him by at first thinking he must be dead, then came back when my conscious started complaining, only to find him still alive.  I bathed him in water from my bottle, which perked him up rather quickly (not to mention making him much more photogenic!).  After a few photos, he revived sufficiently to jump off the stone wall bordering the Reserve into the grassy marsh.  I had done my good deed for the day.

Leptodactylus ocellatus (rana criolla) - my attempt at a natural light closeup.

Parabuteo unicinctus unicinctus (Gavilán Mixto) (I think!).

Also just before entering the Reserve gates, I scared up this hawk who flew a short distance ahead and landed on a post facing me.  Now, I have never once in my life attempted to photograph a bird, and with my longest lens being only my 100mm macro I’m ill-equipped for such even if I wanted to.  However, the hawk did not fly too quickly as I cautiously re-approached, and when I was within range I decided to give it a try.  I carefully crouched to ready my equipment and then cautiously rose to take a shot, and right then the hawk decided to take off.  Not a great shot, of course, but not bad either – especially for a first bird shot ever, and good enough to give me some amount of confidence in my ID as Parabuteo unicinctus (Gavilán Mixto, or “Mixed Hawk” – known in the U.S. as Harris’ Hawk).

Riodina lysippoides (Danzarina Chica)

Insect activity was rather light for the first couple hours after I arrived, but as the day began to heat up so did the number and diversity of the insects that I encountered.  While I waited for activity to pick up, I saw this pretty little butterfly that seemed surely a type of metalmark (family Riodinidae) and that I later identified as Riodina lysippoides (Danzarina Chica, or “Smaller Dancer”).  Shortly after taking this photo, I encountered another photographer who was obviously after insects.  I approached him and introduced myself to see what he was looking for, and it was butterflies.  I showed him my photo, but he did not know the name of the butterfly, only commenting that it was “bastante común” (common enough).  I’m confident in my ID, but this North American beetle collector won’t be too embarrassed if one of you lepidopterists needs to provide a correction.  I did see one other photographer that day as well, presumably after birds based on the yard-long lens he was carrying, but I did not talk to him.  Otherwise, I got plenty of strange looks from the hordes of walkers, runners, bikers, and picnickers that had come out to enjoy this Carnival weekend Sunday!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011



Brazil Bugs #5 – Lagartixa

On my third night here in Campinas last week, I went out to check the building lights around the hotel grounds.  Surely a fantastical assortment of gaudy, tropical insects would be awaiting me on this hot, humid, summer night in southern Brazil.  Alas, virtually no insects were to be found anywhere – on the walls, in the window sills, under the street lights, or crawling on the sidewalks.  A disappointment, although I’m loathe to complain too much considering the number of insects I’ve encountered during the daylight hours.  I did find a gecko on the hotel wall, however, and although it is not a “bug” the lack of insects at the lights made a photography subject by default.

I’m not at all an expert on reptiles, and certainly those in South America, but I can’t help wondering if this is Hemidactylus mabouia – the tropical house gecko, or lagartixa-doméstica-tropical - an African species introduced to the New World and now widespread from the southern U.S. through much of South America and the Caribbean.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

BitB Top 10 of 2010

Welcome to the 3rd Annual BitB Top 10, where I pick my 10 (more or less) favorite photographs of the year.  My goal for 2010 was to continue the progress that I began the previous year in my quest to become a bona fide insect macrophotographer.  I’m not in the big leagues yet, but I have gotten more comfortable with using my equipment for in situ field photographs and am gaining a better understanding of lighting and the use of flash.  I also began experimenting with different lighting techniques (e.g. white box) and diffusers and am putting more effort into post-processing techniques to enhance the final appearance of my photographs.  I invite you to judge for yourself how successful I’ve been toward those goals by comparing the following selections with those from 2009 and 2008 - constructive feedback is always welcome:

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Best Tiger Beetle

Cicindela denverensis - green claybank tiger beetle

From ID Challenge #1 (posted December 23).  With numerous species photographed during the year and several of these dramatic “face on” shots, this was a hard choice.  I chose this one because of the metallic colors, good focus throughout the face, and evenly blurred “halo” of hair in a relatively uncluttered background.

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Best Jewel Beetle

Buprestis rufipes - red-legged buprestis

From Special Delivery (posted July 13).  I didn’t have that many jewel beetles photos to choose from, but this one would have risen to the top no matter how many others I had.  The use of a white box shows off the brilliant (and difficult-to-photograph) metallic colors well, and I like the animated look of the slightly cocked head.

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Best Longhorned Beetle

Desmocerus palliatus - elderberry borer

From Desmocerus palliatus – elderberry borer (posted November 18).  I like the mix of colors in this photograph, and even though it’s a straight dorsal view from the top, the partial dark background adds depth to the photo to prevent it from looking “flat.”

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Best “Other” Beetle

Enoclerus ichneumoneus - orange-banded checkered beetle

From Orange-banded checkered beetle (posted April 22).  The even gray background compliments the colors of the beetle and highlights its fuzziness.  It was achieved entirely by accident - the trunk of the large, downed hickory tree on which I found this beetle happened to be a couple of feet behind the twig on which it was resting.

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Best Non-Beetle Insect

Euhagenia nebraskae - a clearwing moth

From Euhagena nebraskae… again (posted October 21).  I photographed this species once before, but those photos failed to capture the boldness of color and detail of the scales that can be seen in this photo.

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Best “Posed” Insect

Lucanus elaphus - giant stag beetle

From North America’s largest stag beetle (posted December 30).  I’ve just started experimenting with photographing posed, preserved specimens, and in fact this male giant stag beetle represents only my second attempt.  It’s hard to imagine, however, a more perfect subject than this impressively stunning species.

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Best Non-Insect Arthropod

Scolopendra heros - giant desert centipede

From North America’s largest centipede (posted September 7).  Centipedes are notoriously difficult to photograph due to their elongate, narrow form and highly active manner.  The use of a glass bowl and white box allowed me to capture this nicely composed image of North America’s most spectacular centipede species.

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Best Wildflower

Hamamelis vernalis - Ozark witch hazel

From Friday Flower – Ozark Witch Hazel (posted March 26).  The bizarre form and striking contrast of colors with the dark background make this my favorite wildflower photograph for the year.

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Best Non-Arthropod

Terrapene carolina triunguis - three-toed box turtle

From Eye of the Turtle (posted December 10).  I had a hard time deciding on this category, but the striking red eye in an otherwise elegantly simple photograph won me over.  It was also one of two BitB posts featured this past year on Freshly Pressed.

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Best “Super Macro”

Phidippus apacheanus - a jumping spider

From Jeepers Creepers, where’d ya get those multilayered retinae? (posted October 5).  I’m not anywhere close to Thomas Shahan (yet!), but this super close-up of the diminutive and delightfully colored Phidippus apacheanus is my best jumping spider attempt to date.  A new diffuser system and increasing comfort with using the MP-E lens in the field at higher magnification levels should allow even better photos this coming season.

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Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2011

Eye of the Turtle

Adult male three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis).

Is there anything more lovable than the humble turtle?  As old as the dinosaurs, they stumbled onto a body plan that works and promptly dropped out of the evolutionary arms race.  Slow, plodding, and seemingly oblivious, they steadfastly cling to their quite, unhurried lives.  As the rest of the earth’s diversity of life races on, turtles go about their business much as they have done for more than 200 million years now.  They are survivors.

My friend Rich and I encountered this three-toed box turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis) during our hike of the lower North Fork Section of the Ozark Trail in extreme southern Missouri.  Three-toed box turtles are one of four U.S. subspecies of the eastern box turtle, occupying the area west of the Mississippi River from Missouri and Kansas south to Texas and distinguished by their largely unpatterned shell and – yes, three toes on the hind legs rather than four.  I walked right by this guy the first time without noticing him, and only when I turned around to go back and look at something else did I see him sitting there – neck fully extended.  Box turtles exhibit considerable variability in color and patterns on the head and neck, and this particular individual is one of the more conspicuously colored that I’ve seen.

And the eye – as red an eye as I’ve ever seen!  Almost surely a male, as females may have some red in the eye but rarely to such a spectacular degree.  Also likely full-grown based on his rather large size, though probably not too advanced in age yet since the growth rings were still easily visible (in older turtles the growth rings gradually wear smooth).  I estimated it at about 12 years based on ring counts – still a far cry from the 30-50 years that are not uncommonly documented.  He kept a watchful eye on me as I studied him, and I wondered about what his future held.  As an adult, he has settled into a small home range from which he rarely ventures – likely visible to me in its entirety from where I stood.  For the next several decades, he will amble across this single hillside on an endless quest for earthworms, strawberries, and mushrooms.  Save for a possible run-in or two with a destined-to-be-frustrated coyote, fox, or racoon, it will be a largely uneventful life.  He is a survivor.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

First tiger of the trip…

Tiger salamander, that is! Chris and I spent Thursday evening and all of Friday driving across Missouri, up along the Loess Hills into Iowa, across the Missouri River into Nebraska, and all the way through mile after surreal mile of the vast Sand Hills before dropping down the Pine Bluff escarpment into Chadron, Nebraska. We expected the fun would start the next morning, when we would meet up with Matt Brust and travel to ‘secret’ spots in the Badlands for our first tiger beetle target, the gloriously beautiful Cicindela pulchra. As we unloaded our bags from the truck and headed towards the motel entrance, we spotted this gorgeous tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) ambling across the parking lot. Wow – I had never seen a tiger salamander before now, but still there was no question in my mind what we had just found. Immediately we knew we wanted to get photographs, and the motel parking lot seemed the most inhospitable of places for this poor fellow, so I hurriedly made a makeshift terrarium using one of the containers I had brought along for keeping adult tiger beetles and placed him in it. He was dry, so as soon as we got in the room I wetted him down and added a petri dish of water to the habitat.

Actually, I knew I wanted more than photographs, as I had the impression that these largest of all North American salamanders are also among the easiest to keep as pets. I knew that my daughters would enjoy such an experience (not to mention myself!). First, however, I wanted to make sure that 1) tiger salamanders were not listed as a species of conservation concern in Nebraska, 2) my taking or possessing this individual was legal, and 3) I knew exactly what I would be getting into if I were to keep it. Google to the rescue! I found the Nebraska Game & Parks website, which states:

A fishing permit is required to take, or attempt to take, fish, bullfrogs, snapping turtles, tiger salamanders or mussels by any method.

A link at the site directed me to a page where I could purchase a 1-Day Nonresident Fishing Permits ($9.50 – proceeds go to support Nebraska Game and Fisheries programs) – enter my credit card number, download the PDF, and now I’m legal.

A little more Googling revealed this excellent series of videos with information on caring for tiger salamanders as pets , and I was sold. I’ll wait until I get home next week and let the kids decide what to name it, and I’m hopeful it will live a long, sluggish life getting fat on fall armyworms, corn earworms, and tomato hornworms.

Photo Details: Canon 50D w/ 100mm macro lens (ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/11), Canon MT-24EX flash (F.E.C. -2/3) w/ Sto-Fen + GFPuffer diffusers. Typical post-processing (levels, minor cropping, unsharp mask).

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

A Horridus Birthday

For many years now, I’ve celebrated my birthday each year with the “season-opener-birthday-bug-collecting-trip.”  This happens regardless of what day of the week it falls (although two years ago I did get roped into a business trip – I made up for it by stumbling into a quick but thoroughly enjoyable tour of Pipestone National Monument before my flight back home).  Last year I made sure I got the day off and had a nice, festive (tiger beetle) birthday.  For this past April 23rd, a Friday, I celebrated my 29th birthday (for the 2-dozenth time!) by grabbing long-time field companion Rich and shooting down to Sam A. Baker State Park in the Ozark Highlands of southeastern Missouri.  My goal for the trip was to find the very uncommon Cladrastis kentukea (American yellowwood), a small tree that is known to occur in Missouri only in the White River Hills of the extreme southwest and in a few localities in and near Sam Baker State Park.  Actually, it wasn’t the tree so much that I was after, but a small jewel beetle – Agrilus cladrastis - that utilizes this plant exclusively for its larval host. To date, the only Missouri specimens of this species have been collected by the late, great Gayle Nelson on yellowwood in the White River Hills, and I wanted to see if I might be able to find it in southeastern Missouri as well.  April is still too early to encounter active adults, but my plan was to: 1) find examples of the tree, 2) collect dead wood from them, and 3) cut living branches to leave in situ for infestation this season and retrieval the next.  Long story short, I succeeded on all three counts (though I won’t know for a few weeks whether the wood I brought back actually harbors any as yet unemerged adults – finger crossed!).

The area where we expected to find the tree was steep, rocky slopes overlooking Big Creek on the north side of the park.  Rich and I were hiking a trail below the slopes, and I had gotten a little bit ahead of him when I saw a 30″ long snake stretched straight out across the trail.  Recognizing it immediately as one of our venomous species, but not quite sure which one, I blurted out, “Wow, what a gorgeous snake!”  Rich, a better herpetologist than I, shouted from a distance back, “What kind?”  In the few seconds during which this exchange was taking place, it all registered – the dark stripe behind the eye, the bold markings (too dark for a copperhead, too big for a western pygmy rattlesnake, too widely spaced for a massasauga), the black tail (not yellow-green like a juvenile copperhead), and a tiny little one-chambered rattle!  I yelled back, “A young timber rattler!”  Rich got there promptly, and we decided that it must be a yearling based on the time of year, its length, and the size of the rattle.

I have seen a few timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) in Missouri over the years, but never like this.  My previous sightings have all been fleeting glimpses after hearing them shooting into the underbrush to escape my close approach – me oblivious to their presence until it was too late.  This young snake, by contrast, didn’t flinch as I approached (carefully), set down the backpack, and assembled the camera to begin taking photographs.  As I began taking a few photos of the head area (from a respectful distance – the vision of that terrifyingly aggressive prairie rattlesnake from two years ago still lingers), it became agitated and started moving for cover.  Rich wasn’t too anxious to head it off at the pass, but I wasn’t satisfied with the shots that I’d gotten so far, so I grabbed my net to block it from disappearing into the litter.  That caused it to pause just long enough for me to get back into position and frame a shot… that I couldn’t get off before it started moving again!  We did this a few times until it finally just crawled right into the net – now what?!  I carried the net over to some large rocks on the side of the trail and used them to flip the net and dump out the snake, which immediately headed for cover underneath the rocks.  I figured the photo shoot was over then, but the space under the rocks was not deep, and after a bit of probing for escape routes the snake eventually settled into a money pose and I was able to snap away with glee – what do you think?

Missouri has five venomous snake species, all of which are pit vipers with three being rattlesnakes.  I’ve featured two of these in previous posts – the Osage copperhead and the western pygmy rattlesnake.  Both of these species occur throughout the Ozark Highlands, although the latter is more common in the southwestern part of the state.  The third rattlesnake species in Missouri, eastern massasauga, is rare in wet habitats scattered across northern Missouri, while the cottonmouth (or water moccasin) is limited to stream, river, and swamp habitats in the southern Ozarks and southeastern lowlands.  Many internet references list the western massasauga also as occurring in Missouri, but this subspecies is not included in the most recent Snakes of Missouri (Biggler and Johnson 2004).  Within Missouri, timber rattlesnakes have a statewide distribution, but they have been extirpated by humans from many areas and now occur as small populations in scattered locations across the state.  The same is true in other parts of their range as well, particularly along the western and northern limits.  It is thus a rare and exciting treat to see one of these magnificent animals, although the reasons for its rarity are both sobering and maddening.

REFERENCE:

Briggler, J. and T. R. Johnson.  2004. Snakes of Missouri. Missouri Department of Conservation, Jefferson City, 16 pp.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

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Rough Green Snake

My string of good herp luck looks like it might continue in 2010.  You may recall the super-aggressive prairie rattlesnake and uncooperative dusty hognosed snake that I featured in 2008 (or not – my readership was rather minuscule back then), followed by the juvenile Osage copperhead, gorgeous male eastern collard lizard, bizarre Texas horned lizards, death-feigning western hognosed snake, super rare Florida scrub lizard, and – finally – cute little western pygmy rattlesnake in 2009. All but the copperhead and collared lizard were first-time sightings for me, and now in 2010 I have yet another first-time sighting to present – the rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus aestivus).

Rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus aestivus)

My friend Rich and I spotted this long and slender snake during our early April hike of the lower Wappapello Section of the Ozark Trail (soon after photographing the jumping spider). We would never have seen it, so effective was its green camouflage, had it not been disturbed by our close approach along the trail and tried to flee.  The moist bottomland habitat where we found it was thick with greenbrier (Smilax sp.), making tracking the snake a thorny affair, but I managed to head it off and start taking a few photos of it.  It was surprisingly calm during the early part of the photo session, but I just wasn’t getting the lighting and exposure that I wanted.  Eventually, it started fleeing again, and my efforts to rip through the greenbriers to stay close became too much for my arms to bear.  When it started climbing a tree, I said “enough is enough” and captured him, brought him back out to the comfort and openness of the trail, and had Rich hold him while I worked on getting some better photographs.  The one above is my favorite of the bunch.

Rough green snakes are found in Missouri primarily south of the Missouri River in the Ozark Highlands, where they feed on insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, and especially smooth caterpillars.  A second green snake occurs in Missouri as well, the smooth green snake (Opheodrys vernalis), which differs from the rough green snake by having smooth scales and a more northern distribution within the state. Sadly, the smooth green snake has not been seen in the state for a number of years now, probably because of loss of habitat resulting from the near complete agricultural conversion of that part of the state.

Photo Details: Canon 100 mm macro lens on Canon 50D, ISO 400, 1/60 sec, f/4.5, Canon MT-24EX flash w/ Sto-Fen diffusers. Minimal post-processing.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2010

The Inexorable March of Spring!

Granted, the progress of spring seems to advance in halting baby steps with occasional falls onto its muddy bottom, rather than as a determined forward march, but spring is welcome, no matter how it arrives. When little green tips start poking up and there’s a bit of that “spring smell” in the air, I simply must get out and catch up on the status of Nature — the old-fashioned way (she doesn’t have a Facebook account). Over the last week, I’ve gone forth in search of signs that everything else living is about as tired of winter as I am, and wants to get this spring show on the road! There is already so much happening, I can’t recount it all here — A partial list of unphotographed notables: owls breeding; hawks nesting; woodcocks doing their silly, repetitive and almost invisible (because it’s nearly dark) courtship displays; wood ducks on forest ponds; year-round resident songbirds reestablishing territories; spring peepers, chorus frogs, wood frogs and southern leopard frogs singing, especially in the fishless ponds; winter crane flies and midges swarming in sun flecks in the woods; wild filberts, silver and red maples flowering, etc…

Formica pallidefulva sniffs the spring air

Of course, I look for the first ants out at this time of year, though with the exception of 10 March, when the temperature exceeded 70F, they haven’t been notably active. However, that afternoon I encountered, among others, a worker of Formica pallidefulva poking its head out cautiously to sniff the spring air. This is one of my favorite local ants — largish (5-6mm), abundant, active in daylight even when it’s hot, usually shiny bronzy red to red-brown, usually with a darker gaster (the apparent abdomen of ants) around here, but ranging from a beautiful reddish gold (in the deep South) to almost pure black-coffee brown (New England and southern Canada) across its wide geographic occurrence (Rocky Mountain foothills of Wyoming to New Mexico, all the way east to Québec and Florida). It has the added charm of being the host species to a wide range of social-parasitic and dulotic (“slave-making”) ants both in its own and in another closely related genus, with which it lives in temporary or permanent mixed colonies (as with the Polyergus illustrated in my last post). The image below of these ants bringing home a charred earthworm was taken almost one year ago, as one of Shaw Nature Reserve’s prairie areas was beginning to resprout after a prescribed burn a few weeks earlier. Ants will take their food raw or cooked!

Formica pallidefulva with charred earthworm

Prenolepis imparis alate in the clutches of a gerrid

Another ant I mentioned last time I was with you, Prenolepis imparis, has the distinction of being the only ant in our fauna that has mating flights while there is still a good chance of frost in the forecast for the next few weeks. In this picture of a mating pair at  BugGuide, note the size difference that inspires their name “imparis”, Latin for disparate. Any time after mid-February when it is sunny and not too windy, and the temperature rises above 65F, the winged males and females reared the preceeding fall, fly out to partake of a grand insectan orgy. Typically, they have big flights on the first couple of appropriately warm days, then some smaller ones (i.e., fewer individuals participating) over the next few weeks. The flying males look like gnats, bobbing up and down in drifting swarms, a few feet off the ground over a shrub, near a woodland edge or in a sunny opening. (One of my co-workers got into the midst of a group of such swarms once when we were conducting a prescribed burn in a wooded area, and I recall her commenting she “felt like Pigpen with all the little bugs flying around”!) The much larger, golden-brown females lift slowly off the ground, fly ploddingly (or is it seductively?) through the male swarms, are there mobbed by the tiny fellows, and then glide away and slightly downward, mating in flight with the winner of the males’ tussling. Rather clumsy fliers, the females do not always land in a good spot, as occurred to this hapless one that ended up as a feast for a water strider. Those that survive break off their wings, dig a burrow, seal themselves in, and raise a small brood of workers on food produced in their own bodies (like say, milk in mammals or “cropmilk” in doves and some other birds.)

But lest you to think I only have eyes for ants, I feel indeed fortunate to have encountered a tarantula this week, of the same species as Ted recently posted and I didn’t even have to go to Oklahoma for it. This bedraggled individual was at the mouth of its completely flooded burrow in what is most often a very dry habitat — a dolomite glade. Stunned and muddy at the time, my guess is this creature, belonging to a resilient and ancient lineage, will dry off, clean up, and saunter away as soon as she warms up.

Aphonopelma hentzi in flooded burrow

And speaking of emerging from flooded burrows, how about this handsome fellow, a male three-toed box turtle, his sex revealed by his bright orange and red markings, coming up for a breather? In truth, it was perhaps only just warm enough to make him need air, but not really enough so for him to be up and about, so he just sat there, nearly immobile, looking pretty, notwithstanding mud and leaves glued onto his shell.

Male box turtle emerges

Copyright © James C. Trager 2010

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