During May 2022 field trip in Peten, Guatemala, we found a black insect wandering around the fresh open flower of a wild Vanilla insignis orchid vine. This insect was not a bee. Since wild vanilla orchid flowers bloom only 3 hours once a year, to have an orchidologist or entomologist in front of the flower and see this insect is statistically unlikely.
We are preparing FLAAR Report on this orchid where the insect can be seen on the outside and on the inside of the open flower. By late June the report should be ready.
I saw this “owl face” while hiking along a dirt trail through the seasonally inundated bajos that surround the tasistal savannas we are searching for. Fortunately seasonally inundated also means seasonally bone dry, so hiking these many kilometers was realistic in late March this year. FLAAR has a 5-year project of cooperation and coordination with CONAP to study flora, fauna and ecosystems of the entire Reserva de la Biosfera Maya. We are focusing on studying all the varieties of savanna: low grass savanna, high sawgrass savanna (cibal), and tasiste palm savannas (tasistal). Also are making lists of all of the wild plants in these habitats that are edible (which means the Classic Maya had these plants available as food thousands of years ago).
Is this a buho or lechuza or tecolote? Those are the words in Spanish to distinguish between kinds of owls. Tecolote is derived from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Lots of towns including in Guatemala are named Teculutan (which I assume means place of the tecolotes). I drive through the town of Teculutan (Zacapa, along CA-9) a dozen times each year to reach where we are doing field trip research to find interesting flora and fauna. (ps, the shape of the area around the eyes is more like that of a buho than a lechuza).
Next step is to learn what causes these tumor-like growths to form on this particular tree. I usually see galls on trees in the Maya Highlands. On this trail we are in the Maya Lowlands. Hope this “owl face” was entertaining for you.
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.
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.
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.
El Peñón de los Murciélagos – El Zotz. Drone Photo by Haniel López. February 16th
On our September expedition we visited several rivers in El Golfete, Livingston, Izabal. Among them was the Río Higuerito, in which we got a great surprise: howler monkeys! We found and documented approximately 10 mantled howler monkeys, which were eating and moving among trees. One of them had her calf on her back. This species is in danger of extinction so we are happy to find more monkeys. We had already seen this species on our May expedition in the Río Dulce area.
In Guatemala there are two species of this primate, commonly called the saraguate or howler monkey. In the coastal areas of the Caribbean, you can find the mantled howler monkey (Alouatta palliate), which is characterized by being of black ceded hair and lighter hair stands out on the back, which is why it is called the golden-mantled howler monkey. While in the petenera jungles and Alta Verapaz area we find Alouatta pigra, which is characterized by being entirely black in color. Both species feed mainly on plants of the Moraceae family such as ficus spp, Anacardaceae, Fabaceaee among others. Because their diet depends on various species of trees, they are being greatly affected by the fragmentation of forests caused by human activities. Howler monkeys need to distribute themselves to find food and reproduce, which is why various investigations ensure that the fragmentation of forests has contributed to the decline of their populations.
Family
Atelidae
Estado de Conservacvión
Species
Alouatta palliata Gray.
Vulnerable (UICN)
Species
Alouatta pigra Lawrence.
En Peligro (UICN)
Alouatta palliate at Rio Higuerito, El Golfete, Livingston. September, 2021. Photo by Alejandra Gutiérrez, FLAAR Mesoamerica.
Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza
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.
This emotional video shows my reaction to seeing the endless kilometers of this wild virgin savanna area.
I thank the team that did the raw footage: Boris Llamas and Andrea Bocamonte. And Camila Morales of anima.works for the first edition and Sofia Monzon for the second edition.
In the eventual FLAAR reports in PDF format we will show the crab and the snail shell that were found in this part of Peten, far from any river or lake.
