August 2007 March 2008 May 2008
When I returned to Costa Rica in May of 2008 the landscape was quite a bit different and very green. I stuck around Guanacaste this time around and I was more confident about finding Chlosyne lacinia at the beginning of the rainy season.
Indeed, I did find C. lacinia! It only took me a couple of days to find them.
This trip was made enjoyable by the companionship of two of my Stanford colleagues, Beth and Amy (below left). Amy works with ants too but specifically how they affect nutrient cycling and Nitrogen. I’m the guy on the right.
I nearly stepped on a tarantula one day outside the lab!
There were other cool butterflies besides C. lacinia such as this Myscelia cyaniris.
Here’s a couple Marpesia petreus eating mud.
I also found a big old Historus odius. Their larvae feed on Cecropia. Cecropia, interestingly enough, have nasty ants ( Azteca ) associated with them and Amy was studying this interaction.
Near the end of the trip Amy, Beth, and I took a day off and went to Playa Hermosa. It was cloudy and beautiful. It wasn’t the most successful trip ever but I did get some work done, collected about 10 C. lacinia butterflies in all, and got a couple weeks worth of climate data. All in all, a good time was had.
