A Jaguarundi(Herpailurus yagouaroundi) peers over a fallen tree
Super Rare....Super Important---The Rufous Tree Rat
I had this blog written and ready to publish last week, then we got some really exciting news. We identified one of the rarest mammals in Costa Rica on one of our cameras! How rare? We are likely one of about five sightings.
This may be the lowest recorded sighting of the arboreal Rufous Tree Rat at less than 2 meters above ground.
Short ears and black tail are just a few of the distinguishing characteristics of Diplomys labilis.
When I could not find the above rat in my field guide, I recalled that an arboreal rat had recently been discovered living in Costa Rica…I looked into a Tico Times story about Costa Rica's 250 mammal species . The Rufous Tree Rat was only discovered to be in Costa Rica in June of 2015. I sent images via email to the researcher mentioned, José Ramírez, with images of our buddy. Late Friday afternoon he confirmed, with 90% certainty and 100% enthusiasm, that it is indeed the Rufous Tree Rat. Here is his description of the finding Here is his description of the finding.
I was later contacted by Naturalist Jim Córdoba_Alfara, who actually photographed the Rufous Tree rat for the first time in Costa Rica at La Tarde Lodge on the Osa Peninsula. He confirmed our sighting and is including our project’s images in an upcoming paper about this understudied and poorly known rodent’s natural history. While called an arboreal or Tree Rat, the the Rufous Tree Rat and its close cousins are more closely related to guinea pigs and chinchillas of South America.(via Canopy Family Website)
Other New Visitors
While not a true Rainforest carnivore, the Coyote is doing well in Costa Rica
The other new visitor is none other than the wily Coyote. Despite having 15 camera traps throughout the forest it never appeared on any cameras. I just happened to see it run past one of the cabins so I set up a camera and it was a nearly a daily visitor. We also found some droppings and realized that it was probably feeding on iguanas or basilisk lizards. Jaguars, Pumas, and man are the coyotes only known predators in Costa Rica.
My what a big tail you have!
Mexican Mouse Opossum
One critter that we have suspected of being here is the Mexican Mouse Opossum. Well we finally got a good enough image to properly identify it. They are some of the smallest marsupials in the New World.
We were also visited by the Neotropical River Otter again. This time it was actually in the water and was probably looking for freshwater shrimp. Pollution and habitat loss are two factors that have led to the Otter's decline in the last few years. THESE VIDEOS ARE BETTER IF YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR SCREEN
The other rare mammal that we saw was the Greater Grison. These small mustelids (Weasel Family) run around the forest and are rarely seen by people. We are catching more of them on camera traps. We were fortunate to have a short video and a nice clear picture of one.
A Good Mother
It has also been a few years since we have captured good images/video of an Ocelot and her cub. From October through our last visit in March, we saw them on a regular basis in all parts of the forest. I compiled a short clip of their wanderings.
The young ocelot caught perhaps her first mouse!
It was just a matter of time...
When we started this project years ago, Aida told us that it was not
uncommon to see naked people out in the woods. Sure enough, we got
several video clips of an amorous encounter of this gentleman and his lady friend!
Up the creek.
Eleanor and Jimmy cross the river after we set two cameras in a remote location.
We teamed up with Osa Conservation for the largest
Camera Trap project in Central America. They created a grid with 120
squares(240 cameras, 1,920 AA batteries) over the Osa Region of the Golfo Dulce. Each Square has two
opposing cameras. The study will run for 90 days.
Finca Green Eight(Ocho Verde) represented by the purple squares in the red oval.
The data collected will
assess the health of the endangered Jaguar population, their prey, and
their activity in vital corridors throughout the regions of Costa Rica.
We (OchoVerde) were responsible for 5 squares(10 cameras). Exciting news will be
coming from this research over the coming months. Here is the link about
what we’ve done so far .Click here to learn more about this amazing project.
Wireless Cameras Update
Our five wireless cameras continue to send us email images from over 3000 miles away. Of course, you can follow along on the Zoological Society of London's Instant Wild Page. Or better yet, sponsor your own wireless camera in Costa Rica and get these remarkable animals send directly to you. EMAIL ME if you would like to do this!
We have also been working with Osa Conservation for almost two years to get wireless cameras working out in the Osa Peninsula near Corcovado National park. They finally received a wireless network out there. I was apparently able to crack the code in order to get their network up and running. We had some great help from a new wireless camera company called Barn Owl. It seems as if it is only matter of time before we get images of a Jaguar!
Diquís Spheres
Capuchin Monkey and an ancient sphere.
An ancient indigenous tribe called the Diquís were famous for their carved stone spheres. Nobody really knows how and why these were carved, but they were rolled up creeks to various places in Southern Costa Rica. Many have been removed for museums or stolen for private homes, there is even one rumored to be in a yard in Charleston...
We were presented with an opportunity to visit a site literally right down the road from Ocho Verde where several of these spheres are located. We placed a wireless camera on the property and mysteriously the 12 new lithium batteries died before one photo could be taken. I eventually moved it to another spot where it seems to be functioning. It is sending about 60% of its pictures.
I put one of our trusty white flash cameras down by the creek and got some outstanding images.
Mysterious Ocelot and a Mossy Sphere
What in the hell is it?
Our cameras take great pictures, but sometimes we just cannot figure out exactly what is going on. We have two cases that we would like to share here. The first is this strange apparent beam of light shooting across the frame. It could be an insect, but at 5:36 am it is pretty dark at this place.
Shutter speed is 1/122 of a second.
Whatever it is seems to be traveling very fast.
The second mystery image involved what I think is a rather large animal.
1:20am in the center right of frame.
Mystery animal for sure.
I would certainly say that it is dog sized, but I cannot figure out how or why it has those parallel lines running across its body and legs. I would guess camera malfunction, but they appear to be behind the leaves as well.
If you have a guess on that these are, please email me or leave a comment below. Thanks.
Bonus Time
As if this blog wasn't long enough...
Hognose Skunk on the trail of a mate.
Unidentified Bat flies over the Famous Rock
Ocelot on Log via the wireless camera.
In the one that got away category...It would have been a beautiful Jaguarundi shot!
Supporting us.
Those of you that wish to support our efforts can do so in several ways. You can always send us a contribution via snail mail or though PAYPAL.
You can always support us by subscribing, watching, and sharing our videos on YouTube. For evry thousand vies, we get a few pennies and this does add up over the years.
Sooooo…..if you could subscribe to our channel and share our videos it would be great! Here is a handy button. It is that easy!
The Kinkajou, an occasional visitor to out camera testing area.
I'm tired of that Damn Snake! so let's get on with some pictures! We
have just returned from Costa Rica. The project is active and is
continuing to produce positive results. Animal populations continue to
be sustained. We even got a first real glimpse of a jaguarundi with her kitten.
A Jaguarundi kitten towers over it's mother.
Some of the cameras fared well despite that over 6 feet of rain fell in a 30 day time at the end of November. For
the first time, we did not see any trespassers hunting on the land. We
did see plenty of dogs, which cause chaos in the forest.
Local dog harasses an agouti within the same minute.
We are up to 4 working wireless cameras. As far as we know, we are still the only
project with wireless cameras in Costa Rica. Movistar, our cell
service provider, has been instrumental in helping us maintain
connectivity. We brought the cameras and they had the technology, but
we had to merge the two, a first for this multi-national company.
Back in August HCO, the company who sells the wireless cameras that we use, offered up a contest on Facebook and we won!
We won a Camera!
The cameras email us images in minutes. The images that we receive are much lower quality(resolution) than what is recorded to the card. Here are side by side examples:
Low resolution email image of Coati.
Better resolution of the same image downloaded from the SD card.
We have inspired at least six other property owners to use camera traps. So our project is much more far reaching than we ever expected. In
early January, I was asked by a friend to set up some cameras on an old
road up on the mountain behind Golfito. The first time we checked the
camera we got a male Puma image. We continued to see
more of him regularly for the next three weeks. We also discovered Puma
droppings or scat which were given to mammalogists from the Phoenix Zoo. This will shed light on the cat's dietary information from fur analysis.
Our cameras got a Puma only 3 miles from our property.
As
far as we know, this is the first photo evidence of a Puma seen in this
vicinity in a long time. There was also a documented report and video
of a Puma crossing the Coto River just South of Golfito. Our place, Ocho Verde is just 5km or 3 miles from each location. This
is important as we try to determine if we have a big cat corridor from
the Golfo Dulce Rainforest Reserve into the wilder mountains of Pavones
and into northwestern Panama. Cat corridors are important for genetic
diversity and healthy populations. Other than a fortunate sighting, our
camera traps will certainly be key in this determination.
This seems like a logical path for big cats
We can always use assistance with our project as there are constant financial burdens such as batteries, data plans, memory cards, camera repairs, etc. If you would like to offer further help, please use PAYPAL https://www.paypal.com/us/homewith the email address OchoVerde@gmail.com, or contact us directly at the same email address.
No brand was spared from the rain damage.
We have a remarkable support staff in the US that enables us to spend time on our project. Observant neighbors, reliable cat feeders, and an expert parrot watcher to name a few. We are always grateful for their help!
See you soon --Thanks--Frank If you have stuck around this long...here is funny video from our cameras!
In the enire six weeks we were there, we saw 2 snakes and no fer-de-lances!
We have big news to report about our project a little later in our update.
We have just returned from Costa Rica where we downloaded nearly 9000 images and videos that had been recorded since late July. This many images is a bit out of whack for our time-frame, but we had 2 cameras that recorded continuously until the batteries died. One was due to a short due from high humidity, the other was due to a few blades of grass that popped up in front of the sensor and triggered it every time a breeze blew. We also had one camera that developed a corrupt memory card and sadly I could not download any of the photos. If you know of an easy way to retrieve them, send me an email and we can take a look at the images.
Is a cub on the way, for Roi?
On the animal front, we are seeing pretty much what we thought that we would. Crooked Tail(Roi) is still around as is her cub Pizza Slice. Crooked Tail has a bit of a saggy belly in the later pictures indicating that she may have given birth in the last few months. This would go along with the fact that we have seen far few male ocelots recently. Pregnant or parental female ocelots do not attract mates until the young are no longer with them. We are hoping to see her with a cub later this month.
This blurry because a) it is from a video and b) Tayras are always on the move.
Our macho male Tayra is still around, but this time he is with a companion...is love in the air? I had a chance encounter with the female in early January on a trail. She climbed a tree groaned at me to continue to back away, which I did.
The Pacas seem to be abundant. The agoutis are common as they ever were at one point one occupied 350 of nearly 400 videos from a single camera. There are plenty of ant eaters. The Jaguarundi seem to be around as well although only singles were seen this past Fall. The Capuchin monkeys came down to several cameras and the coatis were seen at nearly every location. The hog-nosed striped skunk was seen more often and this may indicate him being more of a resident than passer by. The Curassows have been strutting around like they have owned the forest. One new animal that we had not seen was the 4 Eyed Opossum. It seems to have a little more bounce to it’s step that the larger Common Opossum. Here is video quick recap:
We had 9 cameras that failed and had to be returned to the states. One new Cuddeback camera failed 3 weeks into the new year. Ants caused a few of the failures and I believe that the rest was due to the humidity of extra rainfall in November. One camera was full of water from a bad seal, however, the images were just fine. The cameras were all brought back to the states for warranty repair(I hope). We have been invited to join the Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network. Project director Juan Carlos Cruz came over twice to help get us coordinated with the data input and looked at the trails. We are part of a 14 station network that helps monitor the wildlife in the Osa Region of Costa Rica. Read more about the project here: Osa Conservation Camera Trap Network We are currently on the eastern edge of the network's boundary as it makes it way down towards Panama.
We were also invited to share our data(nearly 30,000 images) with the MAPCOBIO Project which records biodiversity from camera trap projects from all over Costa Rica.
In August, we received two Spartan wireless cameras, one from a private donor and one from the camera manufacturer HCO Scoutguard. With a month fiddling with the cameras, we finally had the cameras up and working. We are able to receive nearly instantaneous email images from our cameras. As we sat on the plane in Miami, this shot of an iguana dead center of the frame, appeared on my phone.
Using this technology we have become one of the very first to receive live images from Central America in the United States. This technology has been incorporated into an app by the Zoological Society of London. “Instant Wild” uses wireless camera trap images from select parts of the world to increase awareness of biodiversity. Now, we can all see what is going on in our forest along with everybody else. Here is the link to Instant Wild
I'm going to do a special blog on the 2 wireless Instant Wild cameras in the next week or two. I'll discuss some of the remarkable technology within these cameras. In the meantime, something weird is happening with Ocho Verde Facebook page, so until I get that figured out, you can Follow @OchoVerde
The Ojos de Lalla camera was one of the older Scoutguard cameras. It has an incandescent flash for color night time images. For daylight, it was set to record 10 second color videos. The batteries lasted from July until early October. We recorded over 776 activations over that period of time.
We have sorted through and condensed them into a three minute video with ocelots, tayra, coati, a capuchin monkey, and a feeding white hawk. Here is the video. I suggest that you maximize the screen size.
We replaced the batteries and in January. The camera continued to function, but began to video and flash capabilities. Since we were still able to get some daytime images, we left the camera in hopes of having at least a few photos. One of the last great images that we got from this camera is this one of an erect cappuchin monkey staring at the camera.
"I'm cool"
We have been patiently tucking small contributions away in hopes that we could get a wireless cellular camera set up. Those cameras are expensive and the technology is improving. I reached out to Scoutguard last week after reading on their website that they are involved in conservation projects. Word came back late Saturday afternoon that they would sponsor camera and help with the wireless set-up. We are extremely excited to be able to get email images in real time. Scoutguard has been one our favorite preforming cameras and has delivered us many great videos and beautiful images.
HCO Scoutguard's newest wireless camera.
UPDATE 7/8/14--The new camera, shown above, did not arrive at Scoutguard in time for them to ship one to us before we left. We won't be able to deploy it until early 2015.
We leave for Costa Rica in the middle of the week with new and replaced cameras, batteries and memory cards. I'll be reporting back with what we hope will be some great images that were captured over the last 4 months. ______________________________________________ NartureSpy from the UK has named us one of the top camera trappers to follow on Twitter: Follow @OchoVerde _____________________________________________________________________ To see all of our camera trap videos, follow this link. _______________________________________________
The Pippin camera was the final sponsored camera. The contribution for Pippin pushed our fundraising project over the top. It is a white flash day/night color camera. Although it has daytime video capability, we opted to keep it in photo mode for the duration of its term.
Pippin cam took 540 photos and lasted from July, 22 to October 27. This camera was moved near the end of our stay in July to a trail near the Mono Precioso camera. It bordered lowland pasture and was at the base of the mountain. Looking out, there is pasture beyond the lens and on the camera's right. To the left and behind the camera is a gradual to steep incline up 200 meters.
We were very pleased with the clear images.
This agouti is is just one of the many critters that liked to cross the downed tree.
Here is our common opossum.
The tinamou.
The tinamou.
2 Tinamous.
Notice the time here. 4:27pm
In 32 minutes, a spider web is finished.
Great Curassow Hen
Great Curassow Hen
Great Curassow Hen
Great Curassow Hen
Originally, I thought this was a male Great Currasow.
Closer inspection yielded that it was a Black Vulture.
Here is the male Curassow.
Here is the male Curassow.
Another pass of the male Curassow.
Another pass of the male Curassow.
A Capuchin Monkey came for a visit.
A chubby Paca.
A chubby Paca. Just one of many that wandered by.
This was one of several anteaters that passed by.
Tail markings help identify individuals.
Here's the 'barefooted' Crab Eating Raccoon.
See anything here?
A Green Iguana used this as his hangout for a while.
The Tayra was seen crossing this log many many times.
We even saw him once with a large male iguana in his mouth.
How about some cats:
We think this ocelot is a young one.
We think this is a young ocelot.
This is a different individual.
It has different neck stripes.
This is a big Ocelot.
A closer look shows what looks like an injured front leg.
Here is another muscular ocelot.
This is a different individual from the one with the injury.
When we changed batteries, the Pippin cam went berserk. It began to uncontrollably flash and not take any pictures. It made a trip back to the USA and was sent off for warranty replacement. Pippin has a surrogate camera snapping away while looking right at that fallen log that these animals enjoy visiting.
As the batteries ran down...we got a crazy rainbow shower.
_________________________________________________________________________ Update: March 14, 2014: The sponsor of this camera passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Libby was a natural history enthusiast who was active in Audubon societies where ever she lived. She worked with researcher John C. Lilly at his dolphin communications lab in Miami in the 1960's. She also wrote several books on natural history.
We got an email from her in early February saying how much she was enjoying the 'critter cam' updates. Thanks, Libby, for supporting our project!
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If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comment section below.
Keep an eye out for reports from the
remaining cameras as I'll be posting them over the next few weeks. You
can subscribe to the blog and get notified when I post, or you can check
back when it is convenient.
Follow @OchoVerde Visit the Ocho Verde YouTube Page for other scintillating videos.
The technology exists to receive live(+ 3 minutes) text or email images from the new 2014 model cameras. Contact me at OchoVerde@gmail.com if you are interested in participating in this type of project.
