John was back in Costa Rica with his family in May. While spending a week at QERC and several weeks at other locations his many goals were research driven while also hoping for many photography opportunities. John is a talented herp (reptiles and amphibians) photographer and has won awards for his work. In fact, at QERC he is working on a photo library of the 4 frogs, 1 caecilian, 2-4 salamanders, 3 lizards, and 7 snakes that we have confirmed present at our location. Hopefully someday we will have a digital library like this available on the QERC website.
One of the most recent aspects of John’s herp research is looking at the presence of a micro fungus in the populations of frogs at San Gerardo de Dota. This is a fungus that most likely is responsible for the virtual overnight extinction of several species of frogs and toads in Costa Rica and the drastic drop in populations throughout the Americas. John is conducting a pilot study of the frogs in San Gerardo in hopes to obtain funding to expand the project for future studies. Kyle Luthman, NNU student who attended the QERC semester program this last spring, was advised by John and collected 30 swab samples of our most common frog species the Piglet Leaf-litter Frog, Craugaster podiciferous. John’s goal in his week at QERC this May was to collect 30 swab samples of a much more secretive species called the Meadow Tree Frog, Isthmohyla pseudopuma. Although the Meadow Tree Frog is secretive it acts in an explosive way during a few weeks in the beginning of the rainy season. When heavy rains create puddles in meadows and forest openings these tree frogs descend onto the forest floor to find puddles and mates. The subsequent tadpoles that are created then spend their transformative days in these seasonal puddles before changing into adults and then ascending into the trees to live the majority of the year in the canopy of the forest. Luckily for John, and just as he had planned, these tree frogs were found in puddles on a nightly basis throughout his week here. We were able to collect swabs from 30 individuals. We also were able to include some of our neighbors in the hunt, capture, and release activities. It was great to expose some community members here to this little known frog species. The majority of the 250 people that live in San Gerardo have no idea that this frog exists and is living out its life in the tree tops.
Upon leaving QERC John’s next mission was to find, record, and capture a frog called the Zetek’s Tree Frog, Isthmohyla zeteki. The destination for this mission was Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. I say record because John has the equipment to record the tree frog’s song that it uses for territorial and mating purposes. The song of this particular tree frog has not been described to science. We were able to accompany John to Monteverde and assist in the efforts. We spent a total of 23 hours on location and had great success. The Zetek’s Tree Frog was found, recorded, and captured. This will enable John to author a note on the song description that he will be able to publish in the appropriate herpetology journals. He was also able to have a nice photo session with a glass frog called Fleishman’s Glass Frog (pictured here, not his photo as you can tell by the quality).
Sarah and I very much enjoyed the short trip to our rival cloud forest at a lower elevation in the Tilaran Mountains. The hummingbirds were incredible (check out the video) and we had some luck in our nocturnal mammal sightings. A Grey Fox bolted pass us in front of the research station and paused for a quick photo. A Prehensile-tailed Porcupine gave us a good view of its talented arboreal habits. And the owls put on a vocal show to entertain us while we were frog hunting. Hopefully it will not be our last visit to the famous Monteverde.
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