Miscellaneous Critters of Panama
From August 18th- 26th of 2003, I visited central Panama, staying at the wonderful Canopy Tower, in Soberania National Park (check out my
Links for the Tower's lovely website.).Click here for my Panama
journal, including photos. In the course of intensive birding in the area, an assortment of odd creatures were encountered, testimony to the remarkable adaptations of nature in the neotropics.
"Critter-watching" was a pleasant diversion in the course of the day, although my relative ignorance in the study of non-avian wildlife generally left me in the position of bewildered onlooker. I am grateful to one of my birding companions, Joe Hammond, a zoology professor at a university in Ohio, for sharing his extensive knowledge, some of which
I retained. I also appreciate the input of a teenager named Aaron, a fellow New Yorker, who had, at an early age, a remarkable knowledge of, and interest in, the reptiles and amphibians of the region. Regardless of my skill level, I will continue to enjoy the almost miraculous forms that nature has created in the neotropical rainforest. If you don't believe in a god, just take a look at some of these awe-inspiring creatures, and ask yourself what kind of almighty imagination could have created such wonders!
The Wide World of Insects
The assortment of insects in the world dwarfs that of almost any other class of lifeforms (save bacterium- what else?). In A Neotropical Companion, by John Kricher (an indispensable book- if Mother Nature is your god, this book is one of the Gospels), he shares estimates that there are almost 30 million species of arthropods (including true
insects, spiders, and centipedes, among others) in the tropics alone- almost 20 times the number of species of any kind that are currently catalogued. Even the most experienced entomologist would be hard-pressed to assign more than a general category to most of the bugs we saw in the rainforest. One of the most striking forms we viewed was the helicopter
damselfly pictured at the top of this page and below. Its four wings, in flight, more than justified its colloquial name- I'd love to have a slow-mo camera to truly capture the remarkable mechanics of its flight. I've represented here, as best as possible, several stages of its activity: above, in its closed position when it landed; below left, in the process of landing; and below right, in flight.
Another varied and fascinating group is dragonflies; they come in a variety of shapes and colors, and are large and meaty enough to provide the main food source of several large species of birds, including some falcons! The individual pictured below entertained us along
Pipeline Road.
Part of the exercise of birding in the neotropics involves keeping one's eyes open for swarms of ants; these are often attended by flocks of antbirds, ant-tanagers, 
and other species which feed upon these insects, as well as the birds of prey which in turn hunt for smaller birds. Another reason to watch for the ants was pure self-preservation; the swarm could be one of army ants, and my understanding is that a person covered wih stinging
army ants would be compelled to rip the clothes from his body to remove the insects, and thus the pain. A quick assessment of my group determined that there was no one I particularly wanted to see jumping up and down naked, so I avoided the situation assiduously (I only encountered one army ant swarm I was aware of, along Old Gamboa Road). Most intriguing among the ants were the leafcutters; these industrious creatures snip away chunks of vegetation, carry them back to their underground nest, and use the leaves to cultivate fungus, which they feed upon. A Neotropical Companion contains a detailed description of this remarkable activity. There was
a leafcutter ant trail along Semaphore Hill that I encountered several times; the ants clear a path, and habitually travel that road for god-knows how long, wearing a visible trail between their nest and their leaf source. Thousands of ants work this path, ones carrying small chunks of leaves heading for the nest, empty handed ones moving away from it. It is truly one of the most amazing examples of cooperative, colonial behavior in all the natural world.
Also splendid in their variety were the spiders; the striking creature pictured below is one of the orb spiders. This group constructs webs that are built to last;
they include thick, sturdy, and hard-to-make strands called stabilamenta, which provide durability and visibility to large creatures who might otherwise destroy the web (once again, see A Neotropical Companion for a discussion on this phenomenon). Even the smallest of spiders could prove colorful and intriguing; a couple of times, during open-air rides along Pipeline Road, spiders would
pass from vegetation to our shirtsleeves, and we would generally pause to admire the critter before brushing it back to its natural habitat.
Below are a couple of other oddballs encountered on the trip. At left is a walkingstick encountered in El Valle, a perfect example of cryptic coloration (camouflage) in nature. I was fortunate to see this individual fly (or jump?) to this spot, or I never would have discovered it. Even knowing where it was, it was difficult for a companion of mine to recognize it as a living creature, rather than a dead branch. At right is a stunning grasshopper (or a cricket?- God knows!) spotted along Pipeline Road. This beautiful creature posed at length, probing about with its antennae in a reminder that these are the primary sensory devices of many insectivores.
Reptiles and Amphibians
The neotropics support a variety of reptiles and amphibians (probably more of the latter), only a few of which I was able to view on this trip- there's some skill involved in finding these critters! The region seemed limited in the number of reptiles, at least
compared to dry areas such as the deserts of the southwestern U.S.. The only lizard of note was the whip-tailed lizard pictured below left, I believe the same species spotted with friends in El Valle, and alone in Parque Metropolitano. However, lizards also scattered quickly
at the first sign of disturbance, so I may be remiss in my calculations of reptile density. A true beauty was the Ground Anole pictured below right, found by myself and Joe Hammond prior to the heavy rains in El Valle. In my morning alone in Parque Metropolitano, at a small pond near some greenhouses, I met a kindly local gentleman tossing scraps of bread into the water. Given the paucity of bird life in the immediate area, I was stumped as to the purpose of the exercise, until I saw several caimans (pictured below left) surface to indulge in the free meal, and a turtle (below right) swimming in to glean some scraps. Contrary to the behavior of other, better-known naturalists, I felt no urge to jump in and wrestle these hungry, albeit small, crocodilians. I duly did my best in pidgin-Spanish to thank this fellow for the diversion, and received
a kind smile in return.
Finally, there's the frogs pictured below. The one at left was spotted along Pipeline Road on a couple of occasions, and remarkably, Joe Hammond was able to identify this well-camouflaged creature to species, although its name escapes me for the moment. The one at left is a Talamanca Rocket Frog (thanks to Aaron for the i.d.), a relative of poison dart frogs; as we hiked in El Valle, an adult of this species was pointed out by our guide. The adult hopped away, but this young one remained visible;
the weak resolution of this image is due to the fact that this critter was about the size of my pinky fingernail! These were the only frogs I saw on the trip, although I know that some of the strange noises that serenaded me to sleep each night belonged to tree frogs. As with most forms of animal life in Panama, I only began to scratch the surface of the available diversity, and I look forward to continued study, and the requisite accumulation of knowledge and skills in the field.
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