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!
Striped Hog-Nosed Skunk seems to be a common resident.
The cameras are still preforming well and we are learning about the animals every visit. Thanks to all who have contributed and supported us with encouragement and financially. A special shout out to those who have cared for and fed our pets when we're out of the country for extended periods of time.
Our trip in July left us with over 20,000 images and videos that needed to be sorted through categorized and cataloged. Now that we are finished, we'll give you the highlights. (MAXIMIZE videos in lower right of screen)
The above video is common opossum. Her pouch is loaded with young possums. Once they are too big for her pouch, they will ride on her back.
Opossums were not the only ones who had young during the January-June period. The below image came through one of the wireless cameras.
Well this could be a number of animals:Tayra. Coati or a Jaguarundi. These cameras take two pictures seconds apart per trigger. Here is what the companion picture recorded two seconds earlier:
That is a Jaguarundi and her kitten. These are the first images of young jaguarundi that the cameras have recorded.
We got several other Jaguarundi images as well.
We even had a jaguarundi image sent by the wireless camera just last week:
The Coatis also were with young. In this video, you can see the clan of females and juveniles. Adult male Coatis are solo.
While we saw no evidence of offspring, you have to wonder how this trio of Tayras paired off on Valentine's day.
To further the Tayra mystery, we suspect this ritual is related to scent marking, but it was pretty funny to see how it all went down.
The day before we left to head back to the States, I made one more quick run through the jungle to double check the cameras' settings/batteries/aim. We captured this image of a Tayra at the famous rock:
We saw several ocelots that we could not recognize including this big guy:
and...this little guy:
We have no idea if any of the ocelots are related, but we suspect that they are.
Finally, we get to the monkeys. The Capuchins were very active on nearly all cameras. One camera in particular caught something quite interesting. It shows capuchins actually feeding with coatis. The unusual thing is that adult capuchins will capture and eat young coatis, but this clan and troop seem to get along really well.
One of the male monkeys even flashes the camera before he spins it away from himself.
Remember that you can follow the wireless cameras on your iPhone with the INSTANT WILD APP from the Apple App Store...it is free!
See you next time!
If you would like to support our project to help with expensive lithium batteries, camera upgrades, data plans, etc, please use the secure PAYPAL button below. Thank You!
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
In May of 2013, we began this campaign on crowd-funding site Indiegogo. The goal was to raise enough funds to purchase camera
traps and support materials to do a thorough survey of the biodiversity
of the Ocho Verde wildlife reserve in southern Costa Rica.
Well, a year has passed...the results were EXCELLENT!
When you start out on projects like this, you really never know what you will find. Nor will you know what obstacles may impede your progress. While we suspected that the biodiversity would be numerous and varied, we had no idea how intense that it would be. It seems that the forest is harboring a lot of animals. Yes, we have been through nearly 20,000 images, and to be honest, 15,000 were probably Agoutis. That being said here is a list of the 20+ mammals:
Ocelots--at least 3 of them, possibly as many as 5 of both sexes.
Neotropical River Otter
White Nosed Coati
Agouti
Paca
Squirrel Monkey
Jaguarundi-at least 3 of them
Common Possum
9 Banded Armadillo*
Tayra--at least one male and possibly a female
Kinkajou
Water Opossum
Anteater-Northern Tamandua
Capuchin Monkeys
Wooly Opossum
Dogs
Striped Skunk*
Human Poachers
Spiny Rats
Water Rats
Bats different species
Squirrels
We have seen well over 10 bird species:
A Blue Crowned Motmot...chillin'.
Tinamou-2 species
Curassow
White Hawk
Trogans
Orange billed Sparrow
2 types of doves
Vulture
Little Blue heron
Cattle Egret
MotMot
More and more animals...
Most encouraging, is that the ocelots, agoutis, pacas, coatis, spiny rats, anteaters, tinamous, and squirrel monkeys that we have seen, have offspring. Reproducing animals certainly make for a healthy forest ecosystem.
Anteater carrying young
Paca mom and young paca.
Ocelot Recognition
So far, we can identify 3. "Roi/Crooked Tail"
her cub, "Pizza-Slice"
... and "Big Male"(note that Big Male seems to care less about the bright camera lights).
We are continuing to look at the ocelot rosette patterns to help identify more individuals.
About the trails...
All of the cameras were placed on established trails,with one one exception. The coatis, jaguarundis, tayra, common opossums, and ocelots were seen at the most distant camera, nearest camera, highest camera, and lowest camera. For example, Ocelot Pizza Slice, was seen on all of the cameras. We believe this to mean that animals like and use the trails. We also have seen animals following 'animal' trails into other parts of the forest.
The only unestablished trail is the tree that is crossing the creek, which animals, of a all sorts, used as a bridge.
About the cameras...
The Bushnells and the Moultries recorded thousands of images of varying degrees of quality. While sharp images don't make good fodder for blogs, you can glean a lot of information from them. The Bushnells were far better on battery consumption and durability, and not so great on consistent image quality. The Moultries made ok videos and ok pictures and were ok on battery power. The color HCO Scoutguards do make nice images for videos with good color night and day shots, but seem to run out of battery power faster than the other cameras. The old Cuddeback worked great until it failed(nearly 4 years of use). The new Cuddeback was pitiful from day 1 in both image quality and battery use. We now have a Browning to add to the mix. The good news about the cameras is that all have been serviced/repaired or replaced under their great warranties (we are still talking to Cuddeback about a solution). We thank the manufacturers for sticking with us through our adverse situations. HCO Scoutguard had offered us a wireless camera to use. It did not arrive in time to deploy on the July trip, but we have it in house now and it is ready to go. A second wireless camera has been contributed by an individual. The route will be animal->camera->cell tower->email address, in early real time information. We hope to work with an international organization to get the info out to the WWW(more about that when it happens). Needless to say, we are very excited by this and sincerely thank them for the contributions.
Setbacks and Problems
No project is without it's share of setbacks and problems. Camera traps aren't really made for jungle environments. Many of the infrared cameras had problems finding enough light to make make color pictures during the daylight and 'flipped' to night-time mode. This is why you see black and white images during the day. The color cameras had similar problems as well: not enough light for a slow shutter-speed. We had our share of leaky batteries. Sensors failed, causing the cameras to continuously take pictures until the batteries died. Leafy plants sprang up in front of lenses. Spiders seemed to enjoy making webs on the lenses. One camera was partially infiltrated by ants. Good cameras sometimes failed for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was the humidity. While we did see poachers, they did not see us(we think). In an entire year there were only 3 days when they were caught on camera, none had any game.
The Best Of Year One
Battery Waster Award--- Agoutis
Least Expected Animal-Tie-Neotropical River Otter and Striped Skunk
This is a screen shot from a video of the skunk.
Coolest Video- 3 Jaguarundi Walking, runner up the White Hawk
Most Adoring Critter-The Tayra
Scariest Monkey-Armless Ghost Monkey(Capuchin)
Best Bird-Curassow- runner up MotMot
Best Predation- Tayra with Iguana
Most Unexplained--The Mystery Smoke at 4:15am
Least Favorite Images--Poachers
Best Overall Image-Jaguarundi
That is all for now.
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