Pollinators are important to learn about because if they are exterminated by bulldozing or chopping down all the plants, or spraying pesticides and insecticide, then flowers will not be pollinated so no next generation flowers will appear.
So FLAAR Mesoamerica is making a list of all pollinators at Yaxha: bees, butterflies, bats, beetles, birds: plus even mammals (hint, the micoleon on the balsa flower).
Visit Yaxha to experience pollinators, and the beautiful flowers here. This particular flower is of the genus Cissus, possibly Cissus gossypifolia, a vine along the entire northern shore of Lake Yaxha and areas of the edges of Topoxte Island and Rio Ixtinto.
Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR, 10:55 am, Nikon D5 camera,
Nikkor (Nikon) 200mm, f/14, 1/320, ISO 4000.
Great conference on Jaguars on Nov 7th, 2018, Guatemala City. Here is a hot link to samples of the presentation by Dr Nicholas.
Dr Hellmuth has lectured in Switzerland, Netherlands, UK, Germany, Dubai, Istanbul, Africa, China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Canada, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica.
He is available to lecture on waterbirds, felines, Mayan archaeology (he discovered the tomb of a king of Tikal in 1965), ballcourt architecture and ballgame outfits, etc.
Here are five of the speakers; Dr Nicholas is showing the front covers of 16 of the books his team have written for Q'eqchi' Mayan children in schools in the remote mountains of Guatemala.
The several kilometer wide Lake Yaxha (and adjacent Lake Sacnab) are home to many waterbirds. We show a sample here: the Green Heron, Butorides virescens, north shore of Lake Yaxha, Oct 31, 2018.
The Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo is open all year long; bird-watching guides are available, plus several bird-watching specialists organize field trips here (Yaxha has more diverse eco-systems so you see a lot of different flowers and birds). Hotel Ecolodge El Sombrero is where we stay every month (conveniently located at entrance to the park). Boats are available so you can experience and photograph the waterbirds.
Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR, 10:05 am, Nikon D5 camera, Nikkor (Nikon) 800mm, f/5.6, 1/4000, ISO 500. Since the boat rocks back and forth with the wind-generated waves, it’s a challenge to focus either automatic or manual.
Is this a cute groomed dog from a Dog Show? Or is this a Shetland Pony?
Cell phone photo by Pokomchi Mayan member of the FLAAR Mesoamerica team, Norma Estefancy Cho Cu, in the garden surrounding her parent’s home, aldea of Chilocom, Municipio of Santa Cruz Verapaz, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Photo taken Sept. 8, 2018.
Here is another view of this “Shetland pony” furry head.
Here are another views of this “Shetland pony” furry head.
This is even more photogenic: same garden, same day as the furry dog (the furry “Shetland Pony”)
If you are a student wanting to do a thesis or dissertation on moths and/or butterflies, we highly recommend Guatemala.
We do photography of spider monkeys, however monkeys, in the Neotropical rain forests of Tikal National Park and now Parque Nacional Yaxha Nakum Naranjo. It definitely helps to have good equipment. A great place to see all the options for digital photography is to attend Photokina 2018, in picturesque Cologne, Germany.
The FLAAR review editors attend Photokina every time for almost two decades. We hope to see you at Photokina 2018 this autumn.
Two members of the FLAAR staff will be attending Photokina this September 2018.
Although we photograph jaguars, pumas and especially oropendola birds (and orioles and cacique birds of the Mayan forests), we specialize in macro photography of insects in general and pollinators in particular.
Here is a great photo by Erick Flores of a grasshopper trying to get nectar from an Ipomoea flower (in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden, 1500 meters elevation, Guatemala City).
Entomologists do not consider a grasshopper as “a pollinator” but Nicholas Hellmuth the same evening photographed drops of what we believe are nectar on the petals (that the grasshopper had knocked out of the flower structure). And the Hellmuth photos show pollen grains stuck to parts of the grasshopper.
After they suck on the nectar, the grasshoppers go to the end of the flowers and eat the soft ends of the petals. All this is in the evening since this is a Moonflower species of Ipomoea; its relatives are Morning Glories (the one we have is a Glory of the Night (my own lyrical name suggestion)).
If you are planning to attend Photokina 2018 this September 26 to 29, you can have as a free download our Photokina 2016 report with recomendations, comments and brands who were present. Also with photo studio equipment exhibited and digital camara reviews.
Some “pollinators” don’t actually pollinate. They steal the nectar without getting any pollen on their bodies.
This week, in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Garden, 1500 meters elevation, Guatemala City, I found what appear to be active and successful nectar thieves.
Instead of going down into the flower to get the nectar at the bottom, they chewed a pit into the base of the flower and were lapping up something tasty enough to attract them to the plant for hours every day.
So far we have not seen them initiate opening the thievery area (they have already done it by the time we see the flower), but when their heads are not stuck down inside sipping up something, it is clear that something has scraped or bitten an area about 3 mm in diameter and perhaps 1 to 2 mm deep (like a crater).
Once we do more research we can learn whether this habit by this insect on this native plant species has already been detected by botanists or entomologists, then we will publish the macro photos of these possible or indeed probable nectar thieves.
