Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A Walk in the Woods

In addition to our nightly Turtle walks on the beach, volunteers at GVI Jalova have been heading out into Tortuguero National Park to conduct night time incidental walks. Lead by incidental project manager Jonathan Groom and Reptile and Amphibian specialist Andres Jimenez, volunteers have been searching the forest to add to our species list. “It’s a completely different experience at night,” reports volunteer Jackie Sands “everything comes alive at night.” Andres agrees saying, “Things start hopping, crawling, jumping and reproducing. At night, love is in the air.” Night walks have been seeing some mammal activity, spotting Red Brocket Deer (Mazama Americana) and one Gray Four-Eyed Opossum (Philander opossum). They’ve also seen the forest’s ever present Eyelash Vipers (Bothriechis schlegelii) slithering around during their night time peak of activity, but the stars of the walks have been the amphibians. Volunteers have spotted Common Mexican Tree Frogs (Smilsca baudinii), Drab Tree Frogs (Smilisca sandida), Green Climbing Toads (Bufo coniferous), Hourglass Tree Frogs (Hyla ebraccata), Olive-Snouted Tree Frogs , (Scinax elaeochroa) Scarlet-Webbed Tree Frogs(Hyla rufitela) and Tink Frogs (Eleutherodactylus diastema) along with Red Eyed Tree Frogs (Agalychnis callidryas) and Smokey Jungle Frogs (Leptodactylus savajii) on almost every walk. We hope to fit a few more walks in before the end of phase to see more of the dark world of the forest at night.


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