Off on a field trip to Costa Rica

I am heading out for the next 3 weeks to Costa Rica. I am meeting 3 friends in Chicago and then we will fly down together. We are mostly going for the dragonflies and damselflies, but the country is so rich in wildlife and scenery that we will be emersed in the whole experience.The first week will be on our own exploring and then we will meet about 30 other dragonfly enthusiasts and spend a week each at 2 different field stations (La Selva & Palo Verde) operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies.La Selva - http://www.ots.ac.cr/index.php?option=com_content&task=vi...Located in the Caribbean lowlands of northern Costa Rica at the northern base of Braulio Carrillo National Park and situated within tropical and premontane wet forest.Palo Verde - http://www.ots.ac.cr/index.php?option=com_content&task=vi...Located within Palo Verde National Park on the Pacific slopes of Guanacaste Province in northwestern Costa Rica and encompassing deciduous dry forest, freshwater marsh and extensive wetlands bordering the Tempisque River.With this many people we should be able to carry out some pretty extensive surveys. There are 264 described species of odonates in Costa Rica and more than a dozen discovered but undescribed species. One of the things we are all excited about is the chance of finding new undescribed species. I expect to come back with more than 5000 photos, which should keep me busy all next winter processing.If I get a chance, I will post updates from time to time.Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

Waiting for the first leg of my trip at PDX. I hate security BS.
Trying something new. ....I got the audible version of Neal Stephenson's new science fiction novel "Seveneves". I just got a new set of Hose noise canceling headphones. So far the book is great. Neal is my brother-in-law's brother-in-law. I also listened to him be interviewed on Science Friday yesterday. I'm typing this on my phone so excuse any typos.

Yep. If we ever get there. Waiting in Ft Lauderdale. Security coming out of Chicago this morning was awful. And I will not fly Spirit agin

Thanks to all for the good wishes.
We are in Cartago tonight. It is a large city and the traffic was pretty intense and we could only find one hotel. The photography of dragonflies was good this morning. We were right next to the Pacific Coast and started getting tired of seeing the same species and similar habitats.We headed over the mountains and we were surprised how much of the forests had been cut and converted to farmland and developed for high end housing. We didn't find many of the streams we like to explore in the tropical mountains. Tomorrow we are looking for several species that belong to families or genera that we have all been studying for years, but none of us have seen these species before. My personal goal is to get good photos, but we also want to collect some specimens for collection and to provide material for several DNA studies.Our trip over the mountains was interesting because we passed through several climate zones to reach the 11000 ft highway summit and then passed through different climate zones on the east slope. The weather has not been very cooperative, but the forecasts were for solid rain all day every day before we left and the mornings and early turned out to be mostly sunny.There is a certain romance to sitting in an open air restaurant/bar after a hard day in the field watching the tropical downpour and lightning strobing the sky. Amazing how good a cold beer tastes.Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

We had to make some major changes in our plans. Last night one of our party, got news that his mother is very ill and probably will not live until we get back home. So this morning we took him back to the airport in San Jose so he could fly home. He was one of the 2 leaders scheduled for the parts of the trip when the large group joins us. We will be able to fill in for him, but it will not be as good because none of us has his expertise in tropical dragonflies and damselflies. Plus, we will miss his company, but he made the right decision.The 3 of us forged ahead and we ended up close to La Selva, so we decided to see if we could spend the night at the field station. It gives us a chance check out the accommodations and what the habitat is like. They seem to have a well run facility and the dinner they served was excellent. There were more than 200 researchers in the cafeteria. They are working on research on almost every tropical subject you can imagine. There are more than 35 miles of jungle trails in the preserve, so we should be able to find almost every kind of Odonate habitat. Some of the most spectacular are a group of damselflies called pseudostigmatids. The are some of the largest Odonates in the world both in wing length and body length. They specialize in oviposting in tree holes and stumps that have water in them. We have already seen a number of species of them on this trip.We passed 2 spectacular waterfalls on the way here and saw some nice mountain streams.The Odonate habitats are quite different than those we saw on the Pacific side.We saw fireflies on the way back to our cabin from dinner. ...something I wish we had in Oregon.Cheers

I have written several long posts only to have them disappear when the Internet/ WiFi failed. I haven't figured out how to compose in a word processor and then copy and paste here using this phone.A bunch of us are sitting in the only air conditioned room at the Palo Verde field station. The heat, humidity and mosquitos here are making it hard to get anything meaningful done. It is incredibly dry here....yesterday had the first rain storm of the season, they hope. It is hard to tell if it is the beginning of the rainy season or not. When we planned this part of the trip we had no way to predict that the rain would be late.One thing that I did not expect was that most of the trees shed their leaves in the dry season. There are dragonflies around, but not that many and the species diversity is low. All their normal habitat is completely dry. Right now they are scattered in refugea in the forests and once it is wet enough they will return in huge numbers to breed.Earlier during the last week at La Selva, we had good luck and despite lots of rain our survey went well. We didn't find all the species reported there, but added a number that had never been seen there. I managed to get photos of an undescribed species and others also got specimens.Some of the things I wanted to get photos of the most were the giant helicopter damselflies. I got up close and personal with 4 species!The largest species is called Megaloprepus caerulatus. It has a long thin abdomen and long wings with black iridescent tips and a white patch beside the blaks one. The long abdomen allows them to oviposit in tree holes that have water in them.One of the guys brought back some incredible video footage of a female oviposting with a male guarding her. This is just amazing footage of events that are very rarely seen. When ghost species Flys they move their forewing and hindwing in synchronization and the wing beats are relatively slow so it makes them look like they are floating. Most other Odonates flap their wings independently. If this video is posted on the Web I will post the link.One thing I did not expect in Costa Rica was how much land is developed for agriculture and housing. When you hear that 25% of the land is in preserves and parks, that is true, but the forests are pretty much cut right up to the border. There are lots of tourist lodges and private preserves, but it is pretty spendy to stay there.I have heard people say that you can retire cheaply down here but every thing seems expensive to me.One of my friends and I had a load of laundry done at the hotel Bougainvillea in San Jos and like dummies we didn't ask for prices first. ... $133..mess on learned.The overall biodiversity of Costa Rica is much less than we have encountered in Ecuador and Bolivia. I have seen 3 species of monkeys, Sloths, Anteaters, lots of kinds of parrots, innumerable other birds, lizards, snakes, and all kinds cool insects.The crowd in this room is growing ....I'm taking pictures with my phone. ...intrepid explorers indeed.

Yesterday afternoon and evening I captured about 100 shots of lightning. I will not know how good they are until I can see them on my image processing computer at home. It looks like another storm is building up....wahoo!

We have passed hundreds of gated mansions with walled parklike grounds. It seems that some of the planet's wealthy like Costa Rica. The manicured gardens do not reflect much love for nature though.

Great photo!I can tell the dragonfly is in genus Epitheca.

I am home now and have processed a few images from the trip. Megaloprepus caerulatus male, this damselfly is over 5 inches long with an 8-inch wingspan. It is one of largest odonates in the world.This a link to the video taken by one of my friends of a female ovipositing and flying. I first saw this in slow motion and it is incredible. This was the first time he had used this point and shoot camera, which make the video even more amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnlI1D7_n5IThis second video shows a male guarding a female while flies around near an oviposition site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7jaHJ1-KM___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is Perithemis n. sp.. A new undescribed species we found at La Selva.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The steamy jungle reclaiming a footbridge across a small stream at La Selva.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A jungle stream at La Selva.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A lightning storm at Palo Verde Field Station, Costa Rica. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ American Crocodiles, Crocodylus acutus, lie in wait for unsuspecting tourists below the bridge over the Rio Grande de Trcoles at the Carretera Pacifica.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is our whole motley crew at Arenal Observatory Lodge with the Arenal volcano in the background. This is the cleanest we were during the whole trip. Some of us are wearing a dragonfly t-shirt we made to commemorate the trip.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________I don't know if I will have time to post anymore before I leave in 2 days for the Dragonfly Society of the Americas annual meeting in Pennsylvania. After that, I will be back home July 8.Enjoy

Thanks.Hopefully, we will drink some beer. Several people are using my photomicrographs in their presentations, but I won't be specifically showing my Costa Rica shots. One of my friends from Oregon that was on the CR trip is giving a presentation on the trip using shots from quite a few of us.I am pleased that my grad student from years ago is giving a presentation and one of his students is also presenting. These meetings are a lot of fun, seeing old friends, some that I have known more than 30 years. With a small society like DSA, it is easy to get to know almost everyone, at least those who come to the meetings.One of the really great things about the Costa Rica trip was the number of specialists in fields of science that were along. Quite a few people were also master naturalists, so we always had experts who could identify all of the organisms we encountered as well as all the plants. One of the guys was an expert in all the modes of coloration that you find in insects especially dragonflies and also in dragonfly color vision, which includes up to 10 different pigments in the eyes. Their color vision acuity is much more precise than ours and they see a wider wavelength range than we do.It is really a blast to spend so much time emmersed in science when we get together. And the beer!

One of my long time friends wrote a bit on his blog about our trip. It is a good read illustrated with his excellent images. http://bryanpfeiffer.com/...and-providence-among-the-unknown

I finally got back to my Costa Rica photos and got my first look at some shots of Strawberry Poison-Dart Frogs, (Oophaga pumilio, formerly Dendrobates pumilio).
These beautiful, tiny frogs were fairly common at La Selva Biological Station, but they were difficult to shoot because as soon as I approached them they would disappear into the moss or under a log.The first one was hiding in a bromeliad and I waited until he popped out to see if I was still there.According to Wikipedia, O. pumilio, while not the most poisonous of the Dendrobatids, is the most toxic member of its genus. This second frog was on a vine hanging across the trail and I was able to get a few shots before he climbed too high to shoot. _____________________________________________________________Edited by Tanypteryx, : No reason given.

Here are a few shots from our DSA meeting at State College, PA.The weather was pretty stormy for a lot of the meeting so our group photo ended up being shot indoors. _________________________________________________________This Calopteryx amata male was shot along Six Mile Run in Pennsylvania, during the DSA annual meeting at State College. It is the first time I have ever photographed this species and only the 2nd time I have seen it alive. While there are quite a few populations they are fairly small and scattered, so it might be considered fairly rare. I was lucky enough to get shots of the male and female within a few feet of each other. ________________________________________________________A Cordulegaster diastatops male shot on a small trickle stream near a beaver dam during the DSA meeting at State College, PA. _______________________________________________________-After the meeting was over I drove to Maryland to visit my sister and her family and wonder of wonders, she has a very nice pond that covers several acres in her back yard. It was loaded with dragonflies including a number of species I have never photographed before.This is the exuviea of a dragonfly, Anax longipes. It is the skin of the dragonfly nymph that is shed when the nymph becomes an adult. Dragonflies go through incomplete metamorphosis, which means that they do not have a pupal or cocoon stage between the larva and the adult. The nymph lives for one to five or more years as an underwater predator before it emerges as a winged adult (the mating and dispersal stage). ________________________________________________________This is the adult female of Anax longipes. This is the first time I have ever photographed this species. It also turned out to be a new county record for the species in Maryland. _____________________________________________________Edited by Tanypteryx, : spelling

Paul, thank you for your kind words.I have had some of my work published over the years. Of course, when I worked as an Insect Imaging Specialist, most of my work was used in scientific publications of one sort or another. During that time, I produced more than 6K images. These are all what are called "extended depth of field" images using image stacking techniques.I am just finishing up the processing of a set of images for a guide to the Odonata of the Pacific Northwest. It will be 400+ pages and will include photomicrographs of all the defining characters of every species and lateral and dorsal views of males and females and of any color morphs.I have always been a printmaker. Back in the day I made large Cibachrome prints. My wife was a framer, so she matted and framed my prints and we sold lots of them and rented some to local offices. I still have the darkroom but have not used it to make prints for many years.These days I am working on a body of work (at least 100 prints), mostly dragonflies, but also some photomicrographs, and some scenery. These are all printed 16x24 inches with an Epson printer on archival paper and with pigment based archival inks. I have some ideas for how and where I want to display them.Digital photography has changed the art completely. It means that almost everyone can produce professional quality stuff, so I have decided that I don't want to compete for a share of the market. I shoot and print what pleases me and if it sells ok, but I am not counting on it for a living. A year from now I hope to have one or two of my dragonfly photos, printed so big you can see every little hair, in every gallery along the Oregon Coast.This is probably way more than you wanted to know, but there it is anyway.