Capuchin Chronicles

In a private reserve on the coast line of the Nicoya Peninsula, Tyler Christensen and I’s, organization NPARS, has a banding station at Silvestre Curu.

In a sea of Mango Trees that have long since forgotten how to produce fruit, sits one of our banding sites.  In the down time between net runs, I’ve spent countless hours observing and photographing White-faced Capuchins (Cebus capucinus), now I’m by no mean a primatologist, but have seen too many interesting things not to start talking about them. 

So Between the banding site and our base camp at the Finca, as we call it, I’m going to go through some interesting things I’ve seen, some moments of clarity that, yes those teeth could really hurt if I was bit, and just the fact their so deviously smart.

I had seen Capuchins before in Panama, but it wasn’t till five years ago when I first started doing research in Costa Rica that I started to become intimately familiar with them. At the Finca we have a troop that makes passes through the property almost once daily, so I’ve become familiar with the group and the premise of their dynamics.  I’ve actually named most of them, it’s easier that way to remember behaviors I’ve seen or just things in general. It sounds a little hokey, but it’s better than just numbering them. I started to become familiar with their intelligence around the same time.  Have we had Capuchins break into the house and stolen bananas on a regular basis, yes they have, have they thwarted all of our ideas to prevent them from stealing the fruit from the bird feeders, that a big ten four. It was no surprise to me when I read that, White-faced Capuchins have the highest brain-to-body-size ratio of any primate other than people. 

 

 

In our first year banding at Silvestre Curu, some of my more infamous stories about Capuchins occurred. There is more than one troop there and sometimes the interactions between troops can lead to a human getting mixed up in it. There used to be this one older Capuchin that had some type of injury, it led to him having a slack jaw.  Now he wasn’t a loner, but would be found astray from the group quite often. One day I saw him sitting on a stump adjacent to the Mango trees, so I walked over to him for some photos. Now the Capuchins there are very good scavengers and steel food or are given food from tourists all the time. There actually one of the most important factors in seed and pollen distribution in rainforest ecology.  I didn’t notice or wasn’t aware of the other Capuchin in the vicinity, but lurking in the shadows there apparently was one. I’m taking photos of my slack jawed docile friend, when all of a sudden, I hear noise and just a flash of black and white fury. Another Capuchin must have thought I was going to feed him or something; he was none to pleased and made me aware of it. He busted through the canopy and was on the adjacent log before I even knew what was going to happen. 

I really had no other options than lift my camera to take some photos and possibly brace for Capuchin teeth. I took the first photo and while looking through my viewfinder watched him come in closer. The second photo he was only about two or three feet away from the front end of the lens.

All I heard was a Capuchin hissing, Tyler yelling you’re going to get attacked, and the auditory thought I wonder what kind of infection can I get from a Capuchin bite. Luckily we had a nice little standoff and both slowly backed away, neither of us to ashamed that we were walking away on amicable terms.  Now should I have learned my lesson and kept a safer distance from Capuchins, most likely, was that going to happen, not at all.  In those first years a lot of the times in between sessions I would climb up into a Mango tree and sit there between net checks. Sometimes the monkeys would be in adjacent trees or near by, so I could watch them interact with each other as a casual observer.   

One time while in a tree I had my back to a capuchin troop, which were in an adjacent patch of habitat next to me. Slowly the troop started to move into the area I was in, a few at a time I watched as the Capuchins filled the trees around me. Eventually I heard the very recognizable sound of Capuchins swinging into my tree like trapeze artists. I had my back up against the trunk of the tree that was rather large, so I was obscured from their viewing point. All of a sudden on two adjacent branches to me, Capuchins landed and like Olympics style gymnastics dismantled with a buoyant grace. All of a sudden there was a cloud of alarm calls, yelling, branches breaking, black and white streaks all over the trees, and than a Wild West showdown of two monkeys and I in this tree. Two of the larger males in the troop had taken to defending the troop from this apparently foreign larger monkey in their midst. There most common way to get the message across their not happy with a situation is teeth barring, followed by rigorous branch shaking, let me tell you they back a lot of furisoity in that small package. I was again forced with a perplexing decision of what to do next, I really didn’t have much room to work with, so I decided to slide out of the tree, rather than be forcibly dismantled from it with two Capuchins attached to me. That first year we just seemed to be in a constant battle with these meddling monkeys. There were incidents of them trying to steal bags, throwing sticks at us, and just general ruckus in and around the banding station. It came to a unexpected peak of, well this has just gotten ridiculous, when after coming back from a net check there was a Capuchin on top of the banding table rummaging through our belongings. 

Over the years I’ve had great fun at Curu observing their dynamically large troops of Capuchins, I always look forward to observing new things there. Just this year I observed am interesting behavioral technique they were using to obtain water with. In the Mango Trees there are large knots in the trucks that will collect water, now in the past I've observed the monkeys drink the water from them, but never like this. This year I watched in amazement as a few Capuchins would come up to the knots and dip their tails into the holes, they would than proceed to drink from their soaked fur. It was amazing they had figured out they could get more water out of the holes by dipping there long an thin tails to maximize the absorption factor of their fur. 

The Boa and the Monkeys, if you say that around the Finca, we all know the story. Capuchins are no friend to Snakes and vise a versa. They have been observed using tools and other mean to kill snakes or at least keep them at bay. A full-grown Boa Constrictor can make short work of one of these monkeys. One day Tyler had found a Boa on the road and brought it back for some photos. At the time Twan Leenders was visiting, so we took it out of the bag to inspect it. I don’t think there were any Capuchins in the direct vicinity at first, but there soon would be. It was raining Capuchins, the building and small trees in the garden were dripping with loud and vocally offended Capuchins. 

They were trying to signal to other to stay away, while also letting the Boa know it was not welcome in the area. After we showed the Capuchins the Boa for a bit and watched their reactions to protect one another, we took the boa away. It was amazing how organized they could be with a common threat amongst them.

 

Sometimes I feel like a crazy cat lady, I have all these names for the Capuchins and I’ll find myself making comments out loud about them. I’m lucky I’m in the middle of the rainforest and most of the time no one can hear me. I do hope to one day do some formal primatology behavioral research, or at least work with some other that are more informed in this field than I am. I'm sure the years to come will be filled with more interesting tales and just plain debauchery with this mischievously intelligent species. 

 

Baulas on the Beach

The other days as this years interns looked on with amazement at the spectacle of Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) making their first journey into the vast and unknown ocean, I found myself reminiscing about an experience with sea turtles from a few years ago.

Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea)

Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea)

I’m lucky enough to be doing research on the pacific side of Costa Rica close to the shore, so I have the luxury of being able to go to places like turtle hatcheries. All sea turtles are facing severe declines in population sizes, from a various number of sources. One of the main ones is the harvesting of eggs for human consumption, there is also the factor of them being predated by a number of species, but here in Costa Rica there is large concerns with human predation. So organizations have been formed to re-locate clutches of eggs to areas where they can be monitored and looked after until the turtles are ready to make the journey into the ocean.  Near Montezuma there is a turtle hatchery that I've visited a lot and became friendly with some of the personal, due to my aspirations in the field of herpetology. Behind the main area where they talk with visiting onlookers is a board with information about hatch dates, amongst the forty or line items of Olive, I spotted two listings for Dermochelys coriacea. My heart raced a little they had two clutches of Leatherback Sea Turtles or as the call them here, Baulas. I was instantly thrust back to the memories of being an eight-year-old child, looking through countless books, gazing with amazement of this species. It’s the largest living turtle species, reaching total body lengths sizes of about seven feet and 800 pounds.  Unlike other sea turtles, Leatherbacks have a soft carapace, meaning they don’t have a hard shell, instead the have a leathery surface, hence the name. They are one of the deepest diving mammals and are also the fastest moving reptile in the world. So as a kid these creatures were nothing short of mythical, I remember having the feeling that they were so far away from me and I dreamed of seeing one. It appeared as if it was going to happen, I talked with the attendant and confirmed when they might be hatching. We returned a week latter and to my absolute astonishment we had timed it right, the first individuals had been seen making their way to the surface. They let us into the fenced off area where all the nests were placed to watch and help the process of un-earthing the nest of Leatherbacks. We started to slowly wade through the sand to see the amazingly charismatic faces of the turtles starting back up at us. We started to remove the individuals and put them in a bucket to be brought to the beach.

Dermochelys coriacea waiting to be released

 I looked in amazement at this incredible looking species, with their long front flippers almost same size as their body. We finished excavating the individuals from the deep nest in the sand and headed for the beach. It’s a bit of a spectacle to watch turtles being released on the beach here, so by the time we were ready over 50 people has amassed on the beach, filling in on both sides of the “Turtle runway”.  One by one each turtles was released and made it’s way to the ocean amongst the masses of oh’s and ah’s. Unlike the Olive-ridleys the Leatherbacks wasted no time, their powerful front flippers lapped themselves into the ocean with a certain impressive gusto. I fondly took some photos and thoroughly enjoyed the moment that these turtles were the most important things going on. I thought fondly back to how awesome eight year old me would have fond this experience, and how much present day me could really appreciate it. 

Dermochelys coriacea

Dermochelys coriacea making it's way to the ocean

I’m not going to sugar coat it most likely less than 1% of the individuals we released will reach adult hood. Those aren’t even the bleakest statistics about this species though.  In the late 80’s the did world wide population estimates for the species, the number hung around the 100,000 mark. When they redid these numbers in the early 2000’s the number had dwindled to between 34,000 and 36,000 nesting females. A species that has been around for 100 million years and in a matter of a few years we’ve reduced them to only 30,000 individuals, is astonishing and disheartening. Reduction in the usage of plastic bags and are willingness to dump them in the ocean is a huge threat. Because of their abilities to dive deeply they feed predominately on jellyfish, following them as the migrate. Unfortunately for Leatherbacks plastic bags look a lot like jellyfish, they eat the bags than suffocate on them when they get lodged in their throats.

I don’t have the answers for some of the conservation issues that face this amazing species, but I do try and be vocal about ways to help. I can’t wait till I finally get to see a full size (alive) individual on the shores in wild. I relish the thought that I will be in a final generation to see this species in the wild, I want other kids to look at this species as a child in astonishment waiting for the day they get to see one in the wild.  

Tarantula Hawk’s in the Shadows.

Since I started taking Meet Your Neighbour images down here in the tropics I’ve wanted to photograph a Tarantula Hawk Wasp species. Well the other night I finally got my wish. After last years many failed attempts at catching one, they can be very good at outsmarting a particular human species with a net or bag. And there’s also this pesky thing in the back of my mind called the Schmidt sting pain index, Justin O. Schmidt rated the level of pain that can be inflected by certain species of ants, bees and wasps. Some species of Tarantula Hawk Wasps topped the scale with the aptly named Bullet Ant. So it’s always a little bit of a daunting task of catching one of these species. They’re just an amazing species to watch in action, a few times I’ve seen them actually take down prey. They have this robotic feeling to them, it’s just like a mechanical death machine. They twitch back and forth quickly while using their beautiful orange antennae probing around the forest floor for their next victim. I was finally able to capture one that came to a moth light we had set up. While it was distracted with the white sheet, I was able to get a container over him. To say it looked angry in the container is an understatement, it was looking at every knock and cranny of the small circular container for a way out. I was able to get a few MYN photos before he became wise to my trickery and flew out from under the container when I was being a little to cavalier with the distance I could uncover him.  Never the less I was happy, but during the whole experience it had me reminiscing about another story from a few years ago.

Tarantula Hawk Wasp (Pepsis sp.)

In a thousand hectare patch of Panamanian forest bordering the territory of the Kuna Yala Indians sits the main base cap for Cocobolo Nature reserve. A few years ago I was setting out for a night hike to collect Herpetological specimens; the party of people included Joel the intrepid navigator slash jack-of-all-trades, Emilio a Panamanian botanist /tropical field ecologist, two high school students going out into the rainforest for the first time at night, and myself. For the first forty minutes or so the hike traversing through the preserve was going swimmingly. We had seen a few nice things including a Bolitoglossa cuna small salamander species; any neo-tropical salamander is a welcome sight.

Bolitoglossa cuna

Than a question arose from one of the students, what was this large insect that kept colliding with him and trying to go towards his headlamp. I was in the back of the line of people trying to collect anything that was missed, so I had to move through some vegetation to take a gander at what it could be. I immediately saw fast movement with just flashes of orange color streaking in front of him. I remember thinking to myself “oh boy this is going to be fun to explain”.  I tried to explain in a calm and confident manner that it was a Tarantula Hawk Wasp and to keep calm and not swat at it. That’s exactly what happened, yeah right, swift and furious swipes like a bear going for honey where what entailed from the next scene. I quickly got him to calm down, while the Wasp than moved onto the next student. We quickly started to move fast along the trail hoping the Wasp would leave, not happening, it just kept rotating between us. Joel decided we would cut off the trail into a small stream where we would hopefully loose it. Again this was to no avail. So I decided to make the decision lets turn off all of our lights and just stand still for a second, hopefully it would see the light from the moon and move in that direction. I don’t know if I had ever been in the rainforest without a light before, but wow, it was dark. I couldn’t see my fingers directly in front of my eye, and with the luck of the situation there was no moon. I decided to hold fast in the decision and give it a couple of minutes of no lights. We turn them on, and like a Salmon rushing up stream; the Wasp shot out from the vegetation and was again on my light.  I had finally had enough of panicked students, and the nagging thought of what might happen if one of them got stung, that I decided to make an executive decision. I told Joel to keep going on the trail with just his light and I would stay behind with the wasp and my light. Emilio seemed to like this plan, since he gave a very enthusiastic lets get out of here Joel.  So they went up the path for a little while, I waited till they were just far enough where I could still see them, but thought If I turned my light out the wasp might not. I finally cupped my hand, took my headlamp off and waited till the wasp was flying around it. With a quick motion I cupped, tossed the wasp, and turned my light off. Waited a second or two, than walked quickly down the path till I was with the rest of the party. It actually worked; we were left alone the rest of the hike. It wasn’t maybe the smartest decision, but it was better than one of the students getting stung, because as I’m writing thinking man that wasn’t your best move to date, I’m remembering one of the students was allergic to wasp’s. I’m going to go with that as my rational factor.

Tarantula Hawk Wasp (Pepsis sp.)

Peccaries between the Palms

Down here in Central America there are two species of wild pigs the Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu) and the White-lipped Peccary (Tayassu pecari). My only previous experience with Peccary’s are the white lipped. White-lipped Peccary (Tayassu pecari) are only found in Costa Rica in area of large tracts of primary forest due to hunting and destruction of habitat. They used to be a widespread species found in all areas of the country. They have a correlation to Jaguars (Panthera onca) and other large cats it seems. In the area where I’ve seen them in Panama, they seem to be one of the Jaguars primary food sources. I’ve heard in the past no Peccaries, no Jaguars, although Jaguars are know to eat a wide variety of prey species. So the validity of that statement might be on the questionable side.  Never the less only glimpses were a few running away and their distinct odder the leave behind from areas where they have slept, aka where the defecated, they are not the cleanest of, or nicest smelling of animals. Giving more validity of why I was excited and shocked when I had the experience with the other species in Central America, The Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu).   

The sun was fully up at Curu and the birds started to become slow, so I decided to go out past one of our nets lanes to check out a flowering bush I had saw earlier in the day. With the mid morning sun fully barring down on it, I thought it must be attracting all sorts of bees, butterflies, and a plethora of other tropical species. I have yet to identify the species of plant so far, but it looked very similar to our Joe-pye Weed back home in the states, and we all know that just attracts butterflies like no other in the right season. There were skippers, metalmarks, fritillaries, and even Queen’s (Danaus gilippus) there; I was fully enthralled by the scene. I

Queen’s (Danaus gilippus)

Unidentified Skipper sp.

Unidentified Mantis sp.

 can certainly get tunnel vision when I find something interesting, so I wasn’t much paying attention to my surroundings.  After maybe thirty minutes or so I saw a White-faced Capuchin who I’m quite familiar with because I’ve given him the name hulkster, as the name implies he is a very robust and muscular Capuchin.  He’s also a bit of a troublemaker, he strays from his troop often, so I encounter him with a decent regularity. So while he was tearing apart a termite nest, I continued on with trying to catch some pesky bee species to photograph. Some more time passed and I heard some rustling behind me, I paid very little attention to it ,thinking it was once again hulkster. The noise started getting more robust and furious, so I finally investigated. To my absolute shock it was a pack of Collared Peccaries (Pecari tajacu).    

Collared Peccaries (Pecari tajacu)

 They were meandering out of some thick vegetation into the open mud flats of the back Red Mangrove estuary; my initial thought was of course I need to get a closer look. This was my first time encountering this species, so I wasn’t quite sure how they would react. They really paid no mind to me at first and I was able to get quite close with my 100mm macro lens, my only weapon for photos.  They went around a couple of trees and disappeared down what looked like the perfect size peccary hole in the vegetation. With some time to reflect I should have though a little more about their trajectory and where I would be walking next. I had exhausted my allotted time to photograph and collect specimens, and needed to start a net check. We have the three different trails to check nets, so I was going to go down the middle trail, which happened to be where the peccaries had come out from and entered back down adjacent to. Not long after starting to go down what are net 13, did I start to hear some rustling.

Net lane 12 & 13

 Nets 12 and 13 are connected, so the path is about 30 meters long, but is a completely isolated corridor, one-way in one-way out. I was about half way down it when I started to see the broom bristle likes hairs through the vegetation.  I could see just dark shadows moving close to the ground, with the occasional snort. As soon as I hit the middle pole that connects the nets, one of the Peccaries charged out from the vegetation. My only thought was I do not need to explain tusk sized puncture wounds in my leg. With a quick swift motion I used the only tool I had to defend myself: a Butterfly net, I whapped him against the snout. It quickly returned to the vegetation. I immediately felt like I was the inferior subject in the situation. My choices were to press on or head back, I decided to push forward. I could hear the peccaries on either side of the vegetation moving along and doing this clacking noise with their tusks. It was really a very unsettling noise as I was trying to determine when the next one may try and charge. Luckily they wanted to get away from me as much as I wanted to get away from them. As soon as I emerged from the net lane there were peccaries on either side of the main trail. They quickly scattered and I returned to checking nets down the middle lane. Unfortunately the one group scattered the same direction I was going. So the whole way back to the main station site I clutched my butterfly net tight as I listened to the echoing noise of their tusks clacking. To say it was an eerie feeling is an understatement.  I finally got to the lane ending and the trail widened up; they took off one way and I another. I was glad to no longer feel like I was in a Predator movie on the wrong end of the storyline.  The thing is I seem to never quite learn my lesson in these types of situations, so I went back to the same area latter for more photos, sure enough I encountered two more that must have been dragging behind. With the harsh sun earlier I wasn’t really satisfied with photos, so I decided to give it another go. I once again was not satisfied, but did get a closer look at the subjects.

Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu)

A very muddy Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu)

 All in all it was an interesting experience that once again reminded me that every day doing research in the tropics there will be a story to be told.

The Beginning.........

2015 marks the tenth year I've been coming down to the tropics on research trips. Over the years I've  collected a lot of stories and for some reason they just keep getting more interesting every year. I started going on banding related trips working with The Smithsonian and Local Panamanian NGO'S.

The author in a Mangrove estuary

Than a few years ago I started my own project with my research partner Tyler Christensen. I than got involved with Twan Leenders and it's just sort of snowballed from there.

The author holding a Spectacled Caiman (Caiman crocodilus)

 Nowadays I'm trying to find a way to spend as much time in the tropics working with the flora and fauna that encompass this unique biosphere.  I primarily do research with avian and herpetological taxa, but keep an eye open for anything interesting.

Turquoise-browed  Motmot (Eumomota superciliosa)

Eyelash Viper (Bothriechis schlegelii)

Limosa Harlequin Frog (Atelopus limosus)

Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas)

 I also contribute to photographic projects, so I always have a camera. I'll be using that a lot to help tell my stories. This seems like it's going to be a good place to talk about the wild things that seem to always happen down here, like: being ambushed by Peccaries, getting stitches at a vet from a freak machete accident, getting bitten by a numerous amount of fauna, getting surrounded by Capuchins from all angles in the top of a mango tree,  and just other things that you can only believe if you've spent time researching in the tropics. This will be the outlet for those stories and more. I will also keep an element of education and informativeness in the topics, to hopefully get people generally excited about the tropics. Unlike the author Mark Twain who I stylized my title after, I will not have the same prose, but aim to keep it enthralling.