15:10 Practised some macro photography
snorkelling today, with some great shots of Hancocks Tube Blennies with their
googly-eyed comical look which make great subjects. I also had time to practice more Spanish as
well, have most of the kitchen and useful words down.
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| Pink Algae (D.Philpot) |
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| Green Halimeda Algae (D.Philpot) |
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| Spines Of An Urchin (D.Philpot) |
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| Mexican Dancer In The Sun (D.Philpot) |
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| A Sea-Slug "Rearing" - So Cute (D.Philpot) |
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| Grumpy Blenny (D.Philpot) |
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| Googly Blenny (D.Philpot) |
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| Some Blenny (D.Philpot) |
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| Clam (D.Philpot) |
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| Blenny (D.Philpot) |
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| A Blenny Shot, Nice Colours (D.Philpot) |
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| Mexican Dancer Front (D.Philpot) |
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| Some Small Shrimp (D.Philpot) |
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| Another Blenny (D.Philpot) |
The next group (Hartwick College) is
soon to arrive along with DL once again.
I have just had a great steak lunch with the park guards, which was
amazing.
Some time for reflection. Costa Rica still feels somewhat like a dream,
but when it clears my head spends all its time thinking how lucky I am to be in
this position. Just today it came to me
how great it is to live so closely to groups of animals without any human
intervention, knowing where they will be, where they go and watching what they
get up to. I seem to have figured out
quite a few of the diurnal migrations of some species, or at least for this
time so I look forward to see how they develop or change with the switch in
season. Perhaps I will find the home of
an Ocelot sometime… hopefully from some distance.
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| Nosy Armadillo (D.Philpot) |
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| Armadillos Bum Close-Up (D.Philpot) |
22:45 Went tidepooling in two subgroups
with Hartwick, and in my group at least we saw 9 Octopus in fairly close
succession. There was one individual in
particular that I should make note of here:
Interesting Interaction #1
I was with one faculty member
(professor) and 4 or 5 students when one of the students said they could see a
“good Octopus,” rather than a couple of tentacles protruding from beneath a
rock. I went over and the student had
encouraged it from a rock so it came out into the open. I told the students to switch off their
flashlights (torches) so we only had one light on it, not seven or so and we
watched as it walked along the sand.
This was great alone but we saw as it moved to a rock and then
disappeared and someone made the joke that it was now a “rocktopus.” I pointed
out an obvious hole that was the other side of the tidepool with only sand
between the rock and this hole, then I said “I think he wants to get into
there.”
So there we stood, amazed as it was when
the Octopus started to reposition itself on the rock as if it was about to move
so we fell silent expecting it to shoot across to the hole. Instead however, it casually moved down onto
the sand and I distinctly said (and I do not remember why) “and now it’s a Hermit Crab.”
Still silent, we watched in amazement as
the body of this Octopus looked more and more like a shell, it changed to a
purple colour, was distinctly conical and the texture of its skin changed so it
looked convincingly like a shell. The
faculty member said “it actually does look like a Hermit Crab” and then,
amazingly, it brought in its legs underneath its body (now ‘shell’) and then
flicked the tips out from beneath as if they were legs. Finally, to complete the show it moved
sidewards, like a Crab, not in a constant movement but staggered as a Crab just
and then slipped into the whole at which point we let out a unanimous
“wow.” I mean, maybe it was nothing but
I have heard about so-called mimicry in these amazing animals but never of a Crab/Hermit Crab and I especially never thought I would ever see it for real
and will certainly be a defining moment of my time here. Incredible.
It turned out too that the other group
also saw 9 Octopus, or individual sightings, and that total of 18 was a new
highest for the park which is lovely and refreshing to hear.
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| Spot The Octopus (D.Philpot) |
I walked up to sleep outside on the deck
of the dorm house with the students to comfort them in this ‘unfamiliar
environment,’ but upon arriving they had all their lights pointing up into the
trees. What they had lit up was an
anteater on a vertical tree feeding on ants presumably, but everyone had their
eyes on the cutest little baby Anteater on this mothers back though
unfortunately no-one could get a decent photo with all this poor lighting and
the fact she was quite high up.
In the early hours I was out walking on the reef by myself tidepooling where I spotted an interesting Crab that was extremely flattened against the surface of a rock, I will spare you a photo, especially as right now I am unable to locate a good source of Crab literature for the area - and I am told one simple doesn't exist!
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| A Very Flat Crab, Snails Top Right Are 1cm Thick (D.Philpot) |