Author: Eric Enrique Flores De Gracia

You are welcome to check my profile in:
http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/eric-flores1/

Regards
Eric

Reaching Safety

When somebody talks about roads crossing along natural forest, we could think about the perturbation this may cause to local fauna, especially in the Tropics. At least in Panama, wildlife crossings are not so popular in terms of design, deployment and monitoring. To my knowledge, the few existing ones are aerial and designed keeping in mind the crossing of monkeys or sloths for example. This issue came to my mind on the 3rd of November when I saw a Dactyloa insignis trying to cross an 8 m road traversing Santa Fe National Park, one of the pristine forest in central Panama.

Captured at Santa Fe National Park, Panama

Captured at Santa Fe National Park, Panama

It made three short attempts and looked clumsy when trying to run on the pavement puting him at risk of death, so we caught him and helped him reach the other side of the road.

A. Lionotus Male Paid The Price: Snake Predation By Oxybelis

Oxybelis aeneus prey upon A. lionotusFemale A. lionotus observing[June 12 2012; 8:35 a.m.]. During a placid morning, a team from Herbios Group Panama observed an impressive image. We witnessed an Oxybelis aeneus (147 cm, 55 g) with an Anolis lionotus male (22.9 g) caught in her jaws. He was the breakfast meanwhile, his fellow female just observed the scene.

We were so happy to witness such an event, thinking about what was the male doing while the predator took the chance. Perhaps He was displaying to attract the cryptic female, or just was distracted while feeding! In any case the snake had the morning meal and the male paid the price.

Anolis Lionotus…Sleeping Posture

During a field survey in Muelas (21-08-2011; 21:07), buffer zone of the Santa Fe National Park in central Panama, an A. lionotus was captured in its sleeping posture on the river bank. Interestingly, they seem to “mimic” the dead tree branch, but being cryptic at night does not make much sense to me; even if the predator is capable of night vision, being perched on a tree without leaves does not seem to be an advantage.

Anolis lionotus

 

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