Passionflower series, part 8 and final.
Just more pics of these awesome leaf-footed bugs taking full advantage of this defenseless plant.You can see that the top bug is feeding from the extrafloral nectary.
Hope you enjoyed the passionflower series (: Who knows, I might end up studying these guys for my dissertation, they’re definitely on the table!
Photo from Bocas del Toro, Panama, May 2011.
Passionflower series, part 7
Passionflower visitors: a leaf-footed bug (Coreidae) and a snake on a passionflower (more info about what’s going on with this plant here). Photo from Bocas del Toro in Panama, taken in May 2011.
Passionflower series, part 5
Click here for info on these beautiful passionflowers. I don’t know what these insects are. The little ones are beetles, that’s as far as I can ID. Photo from the Ecuadorian Amazon, near Puyo, last fall.
The last of my submissions that was posted by ohscience. Thanks again for the exposure, I appreciate it (:
These are leaf-footed bugs (Coreidae) on a passionflower (Passiflora) in the Panamanian jungle in Bocas del Toro. This vine was winding around an outdoor staircase where I was staying for a while, and I saw these bugs on there all the time.
A lot of passionflowers, this species included, have extrafloral (outside-the-flower) nectaries—little spots on the stems that secrete nectar—to attract ants, which eat the nectar and then defend their delicious food source against other insects. But this passionflower was attracting all these bugs and no ants. The bugs were going after the extrafloral nectaries, and the floral nectaries too, as this photo shows. Could they be pollinators? No, the owner of this plant had to hand-pollinate it with his other vines because pollinators weren’t coming. So what was the deal with this plant? It was attracting enemies and not making any friends! Its owner told me that it’s not native to Panama, so I suspect that it’s just not matched up correctly with the local pollinators and defensive ants, for whatever reason.
Photo credit: me.
(submission from wandering-nature)
another submission posted by ohscience (:
A hornworm caterpillar (Sphingidae), parasitized, probably by a braconid wasp. Photo taken in the Ecuadorian Amazon near Puyo.
Photo credit: me.
(submission from wandering-nature)
yay, another submission of mine that ohscience posted! Thank you!
This is a euglossine bee visiting a passionflower in the Ecuadorian Amazon near Puyo. Male euglossine bees have the wonderful and unique behavior of collecting flowers’ fragrances, probably to attract females, though this has not been proven yet. The one in the picture is a female though; males’ hind legs are swollen to collect the chemicals.
Photo credit: me
(submission from wandering-nature)
One heckuva lekker: the magnificent Golden-collared Manakin
I was in the jungle in Bocas del Toro, Panama, last May when I heard this strange noise. Listen for the sound of marbles knocking together.
I saw this bird and miraculously got a good photo:
When I got back, I looked at my bird guide and realized that I’d just seen a Golden-collared Manakin!! Gasp! This is a really cool bird. Along with peacocks and cock-of-the-rocks, it’s a classic example of a lekking bird.
(Side note: here’s a cock-of-the-rock that I saw in Ecuador, and you can hear their raucous calls around 2:10 of this podcast episode.)
Lekking is when the males gather together in groups and do a colorful and/or noisy display, something very exuberant and eye-catching. Picture high school. They’re trying to catch the eyes of the females, but they’re also catching the attention of predators, so it begs the question: How could this behavior evolve if it could easily get you killed?
Turns out that leks aren’t 100% understood yet, but one idea is that they evolve when the dad doesn’t have to help with child care. In manakins, for examples, it’s easy for the mom to find enough fruit to feed her chicks, but birds grow slowly on a fruit diet (it’s low in protein). So it’s easier to hide the nest during a long chick-hood if there’s only one parent always coming and going.
If the only thing that Dad is contributing to the chicks is his genes, and not help with child care, then Mom has to make sure she gets some damn good genes for her babies. All the displaying at a lek is somehow helping her choose her children’s father, maybe by showing her signals of health and strength, or maybe because the males are competing with each other, and it’s the dominant guy who gets the girl.
Anyway, it makes for some spectacular shows. Every species has its own kind of display. The golden-collared manakin dances by jumping from sapling to sapling, and in between he SNAPS his wings—that’s the marble-knocking noise you hear in the audio. The dance is incredibly fast, so the female can see how quick and agile he is.
A few days after I first saw and heard a manakin, I was lucky enough to actually see the dance in action. And I’ll tell you what: if I were a female golden-collared manakin, I’d totally go for that.
Reference: J. Kricher, A Neotropical Companion (Princeton University Press, Princeton, ed. 2, 1997)
Photos and audio from November 2010, Parque Etnobotánico Omaere, in Puyo, Ecuador.
Audio notes:
All my best bird call recordings were rainy—seems like jungle birds really like to sing in the rain! The second and last clips in the audio are from Princesa, the green parrot featured in a couple of the photos, an Orange-Winged Amazon (Amazona amazonica). She lives in the reception of the park because she cannot fly. I don’t know the other bird calls.
Photo notes:
The first picture is a hornworm caterpillar (Sphingidae), parasitized, probably by a braconid wasp (thank you Jenn!).
The second shows a “walking palm” (Socratea exorrhiza). It can move a few feet horizontally throughout its life by putting out new roots in one direction or another. I learned that this is in order to grow toward the light (for example, I’ve seen a spot where three individuals started growing in the same spot and are moving away from each other), but the internets have just told me that the function of the roots are debatable and not well-understood. Anyway, it is true that people use the spiky roots as scraping tools for yucca and the like.
The third picture shows sangre de drago—click here to read the entry that goes into detail about this plant.
The other parrots besides Princesa are all macaws: blue-and-yellow (Ara ararauna), scarlet (Ara macao), and red-and-green (Ara chloropterus). The scarlet and red-and-green thought they were a couple and decided that the park reception was their territory, and oh my gosh, you do not understand how mean parrots can be! These guys terrorized the reception, and would attack unprovoked! If you ever have doubts that dinosaurs and birds share a common ancestor, spend some time watching angry parrots, and you will doubt no more.
The really gorgeous flower shown near the end is a passionflower (Passiflora). In the first picture you can see a leaf-footed bug (Coreidae), and the second shows a euglossine bee. Male euglossine bees have the wonderful and unique behavior of collecting flowers’ fragrances, probably to attract females, though this has not been proven yet. The one in the picture is a female though; males’ hind legs are swollen to collect the chemicals (thank you Doug!).
Podcast Episode 2: Traditional Harmony with Nature—the Waorani
In this episode…
Chris Canaday of the Omaere Ethnobotanical Park discusses how the Waorani (an indigenous group of people who live in the Amazon of Ecuador) use the rainforest as a renewable resource.
You can download or subscribe with iTunes, or with Podomatic. Click above to stream, or use the link below to download (choose “save as” from the drop-down arrow).
A few articles about the ethics of contacting isolated people and about the Waorani’s difficulties with oil companies can be found here, here, or here. This is by no means a complete selection!
The next episode will feature a few modern ideas for living in harmony with nature.
Theme music: Pacifico (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Other music in this episode, in order of appearance:
Stellar Rushes (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
At the Foothills (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Rowing-Haint (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Easy Pieces No.4 (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Quiver (James Beaudreau) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
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