Firestone Center, Costa Rica day two

First order of business today is to note that I have competition!!!  The students are blogging their trip, so to get all the goods on the trip you should also check out:

costaricathesis.wordpress.com

From what I've seen so far they are putting up a pretty fun bit.

From my end, I led an orientation walk of the whole property this morning, and only took one photo.  The golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes) makes big webs, and apparently can capture big prey.

Golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes) with an owl-eye butterly (Caligo sp.). The spider is about four inches long

Afterwards, I went over and got a new machete for Connor.  Greddy, the land manager for the Firestone Center was kind enough to put a sharp edge on it.

Machetes come very dull. But Greddy fixed that up

And then dinner and well, another hike up the hill to look for frogs and other things that can only be found at night in the tropical forest.  I will note that it is something like 800 feet of elevation gain to get up to the ponds with the frogs and such, so it is not a trivial bit to get up there.

But on the way up we saw:

A nice moth with colorful underwings

Katydids making katydids

Looks like a tree cricket

A pretty rough-looking owl butterfly (Caliga sp.)

And then there is the stuff we saw at the top of the Firestone.  Very fun evening on top of the hill.

The first critter was this giant spider on a banana plant

This neon-colored grasshopper was a new one for me on the property.

And of course there were red-eyed tree frogs (Agalychnis callidryas), but not as many as we see earlier in the summer

Wasps, check that box, as they are always around

Cool looking dragonfly

Frogs were a key part of the night walk, but I don't have the time or materials to identify them right now. I will post more photos, and hopefully have the IDs, later

Near the end of the walk up on top, we spotted this leaf-legged bug (probably Genus Anisoscelis) which was beautiful

I have a couple more interesting pics from the hike, but will have to put them up tomorrow as too darn late here to do more.  Gotta sleep at least a little bit.