Posted March 16, 2022

Join us for our "Livingston Biodiversity Documentation" where you can learn more about our projects and the achievements obtained by our team during our field trips.

This presentation will be in Spanish starting 6 PM on Thursday, 17 March.

Posted March 9, 2022

The adventure of Biotopo Protegido San Miguel La Palotada El Zotz begins when you leave Flores, Petén. On the way you cross several communities, municipalities and towns which are very curious to know. Dos Aguadas is the last place you pass before arriving.

The Biotopo El Zotz staff was very kind and directed us to the entrance of the area, then we transferred all our luggage to the PickUp that they gave us and a 6x6 PickUp, since these cars are modified for this type of road. The camp where we were based is 20 kilometers from the main entrance. Just minutes after we arrived we saw the sky. Lots of bats were flying! They came from El Peñon de los Murciélagos. The whole team was amazed.

Our main goal on this visit was to get to Peñon de los Murciélagos to document the bats. This is an incredible place for its greatness and what lives in it. The Peñon is part of the natural escarpment that limits the Buenavista Valley. It is a limestone formation that has a large number of cracks and fissures. Bats inhabit these, most of which belong to the Pteronotus genus and 39 species have been identified.

Click to Enlarge CHIROPTERA order. Bats on El Peñón de los Murciélagos, El Zotz. Photo by David Arrivillaga. February 17th.

Did you know? The shape of the cracks causes air currents called chaltun, which contribute to the erosion of the rock.

It is worth visiting this place, since every evening thousands of bats go out in search of food, causing an impressive ecological phenomenon.

Click to Enlarge El Peñón de los Murciélagos – El Zotz. Drone Photo by Haniel López. February 16th

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal

Posted November 12, 2021

On the walk we did in Tapon Creek Reserve in a tree, our photography assistant Randy Norales observed a reptile. At first we thought it was a salamander but when we observed it well we realized that it was an Orox (lizard). This lizard was near an opilion and in its mouth you can see some legs similar to those of this arachnid, so we think that it could have fed on it. It was easy to photograph it, as it was hardly moving.

Norops es el género que incluye alrededor de 150, anteriormente este mismo género se llamaba “Anolis”. Pertenece a la familia IGUANIDAE.

Their diet is based on invertebrates in forest litter or low vegetation. In which they include spiders, grasshoppers, larvae, eggs of other insects, pupae, termites and cockroaches. A curious fact is that they also feed on their own skin when after molting.

Taxonomy:

Click to Enlarge

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References

https://bioweb.bio/faunaweb/reptiliaweb/FichaEspecie/Anolis trachyderma

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza

Posted September 16, 2021

Upon returning from the documentation of species El Rosario community, an area of tropical forest in Tapón Creek, Livingston, our researcher Víctor Mendoza found a vine snake (Oxybelis fulgidus), which was on the trail. The snake was a bit scared but we managed to photograph it. This snake can adapt to a wide variety of ecosystems. From a dry forest to a very humid tropical forest. They are distributed from Mexico to southern Brazil and northern Peru.

It can measure up to 2 meters in length. Their eyes are large, rounded and yellow in color. Its body is slim, brown to gray in color. Its most striking characteristics are the tail and the mouth, since the tail can make up almost half its length, normally the adult specimens reach no more than one meter or a little more. Males have longer tails than females. The inside of its mouth is purple, this is noticeable since when it moves it opens its mouth to intimidate its predators.

The generic name Oxybelis is derived from the Greek words oxy, meaning "pointed" and belas, meaning "dart," in reference to the elongated head. The specific epithet is the Latin word aeneus, meaning "bronze, or copper" in reference to the body color of the holotype (Lemos-Espinal & Dixon, 2013).

Oxybelis aeneus is a diurnal tree species. It feeds on lizards, birds, frogs, insects, and mammals have also been reported. When on the lookout for prey, it rigidly holds its tongue out to sense the prey's presence. As a defense and predation mechanism, the snakes of the genus Oxybelis roll their eyes while they remain immobile, searching for their prey and monitoring their environment. These types of snakes are not adapted to bite large prey so it could be said that they are harmless to humans. According to the naturalist Miguel Álvarez del Toro. Although the bite is not fatal, it can cause local swelling, severe pain, and limb paralysis that sometimes lasts for a long time.

Taxonomy:

Click to Enlarge Vine snake (Oxybelis aeneus) at Taponcito Creek, Livingston. October, 2021. Photo by Victor Mendoza with Sony RX10, FLAAR Mesoamerica.

When you walk on trails it is advisable to pay attention to where you walk and also try not to put your hands in the trees, since some snakes, such as the vine can be in the trees and could be confused with the vines. The team tries to wear rubber boots but we also have leggings.

References

https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Oxybelis&species=aeneus
Reptile database

www.anywhere.com/es/flora-fauna/reptil/narrow-headed-vine-snake

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza

Posted October 6, 2021

When you climb the steep hill up to the lookout at the top, you may have luck and see a camouflaged hummingbird nest. We show this in the new FLAAR report.

At the base of the hill, out in Lake Peten, it is important to protect the local crocodiles.

Although we found mainly lots of interested plants as we hiked up the hill, depending on the time of day and the season, you may see some local birds or animals.

Click to Download	Click to Download
Hummingbird nest is on page 13; all these nests have lichen pegged to the side to camouflage the nest

Posted October 4, 2021

We are entering the 10th month of our 5-year research project on flora, fauna, and ecosystems of the entire Reserva de la Biosfera Maya. We are focusing on wetlands, especially swamps, marshes, riversides, lake and lagoon sides. But since savannas are seasonally inundated, as are the tintal forests surrounding the open grassland savannas, we include both under the generic concept of “wetlands.”

We find giant snail shells in almost every savanna or cibal that we hike through (in Parque Nacional Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo, during our August 2018-July 2019 project there). Now we are finding the same giant snail shells in savannas or cibal sawgrass areas elsewhere in the Reserva de la Biosfera Maya. Although our primary focus is plants and biodiverse ecosystems, we are aware that thousands of years ago what is today a savanna may have been a bit different and used for a variety of purposes.

I am noticing, for example, that most savannas and cibal areas of PNYNN and PNLT (Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre) have a “ring of water” around them; this ring is sporadic pools of shallow water. Often the humidity is underground but often the water is visible above ground.

Is this “ring of water” a natural result of local geology or soil? We hope to coordinate research with soil scientists and geologists in the future. Our goal is to find the wetlands on aerial photos, hike to these areas, and use our decades of capability of high-resolution digital photography to record these areas. We provide all these photos to CONAP and to the park administrators. Drone photography is needed even more than panorama and macro photography that we already do. We will be publishing our first drone photos of wetlands of the southwest area of PNYNN later this week.