Posted November 21, 2022

When visiting Parque Nacional Tikal, you can watch great diversity of birds, a common one is the ocellated turkey, which walks over the whole park, but you can’t find this beautiful turkey everywhere; since it is endemic to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, north Guatemala, and north-west and west-central Belize. Its stunning colors is the first thing that will catch your eye and if you have luck and keep quiet you will be able to see it closer and enjoy the spectacle, but remember not to touch them and respect the flora and fauna of the reserve.

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Meleagris ocellate in Parque Nacional Tikal. Photographs by Edwin Solares. October, 2022

With a naked eye, it can seem similar to the North American wild turkey and, actually, they belong to the same genus, but when you get to see the brilliants colors you will notice the difference. The males are brighter than the female with iridescent bronze-green body feathers and bluish-gray with blue-bronze tail feathers, but its amazing colors don’t end there, the skin of its head and neck is bright blue. Males, in addition have a blue fleshy crown on their heads with yellow-orange warts and during the breeding season, the crown enlarges and the eye-ring and warts become more visible. Legs are a dark red color in both sexes, but the difference is thar adult males have spurs measuring around 3.8 cm in length. The diet of the ocellated turkeys is varied and omnivorous. This includes insects (mainly moths and beetles), leaves, roots, tubers, seeds, nuts, fruits of different plants. They feed during the day and roost in trees at night.

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Meleagris ocellate in Parque Nacional Tikal. Photographs by Edwin Solares. October, 2022

Taxonomic information:

Bibliography

• McFALLS, R.
• 2008
• "Meleagris ocellata" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web.
  
  Available online:
  https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Meleagris_ocellata/

Written by Vivian Hurtado

Posted November 17, 2022

Jaguars, usually humans in jaguar costumes, are the primary participants in enema injection ritual scenes on 7th-9th century Classic Maya polychrome ceramics.

On Monday evening, Nov 21, 2022, a PowerPoint presentation will be delivered by Nicholas Hellmuth on his research on enemas that started in 1977. This research won the Ig Nobel Prize 2022 for art history for Dr Hellmuth and Dr Peter De Smet. The iconographic aspect has been updated for the November 2022 presentation.

Classic Maya Enema Ritual Iconography

The Mysterious World of Maya Enemas

• Enema Jugs
• Enema Syringes
• Enema Bibs
• Enema Rituals
• Jaguars in Enema Rituals
• Females in Enema Rituals

8 pm EST, 7 PM CT, via ZOOM, via The Aztlander (newsletter) (link is on attached PDF) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89340702821

For zoologists: in addition to the common jaguar, deer, monkeys and other animals (or people in animal costumes) are occasionally present.

For iconographers: this ritual is shown in this PowerPoint much more often than published so far. Women are present in many of the scenes, however they themselves do not receive enemas; the females prepare the men to receive the injection.

For epigraphers: updated study is needed of all the hieroglyphs and symbols associated with the enema jug and participants. The lecture shows dozens of enema jugs. Many of these jugs have hieroglyphs on the jug and other symbols nearby.

For botanists: LOTS of plants were ingredients in the enemas. Peter De Smet has studied this aspect in his PhD and subsequently. I still estimate that lots more plants were added (including possibly cacao). His documentation will be cited in the bibliography.

The lecture will be in English but questions can be asked and answered also in Spanish.

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Posted November 16, 2022

The orange-breasted falcon (Falco deiroleucus) is a beautiful species, but rare to see. Although its natural distribution is wide and occurs from the southeast of Mexico and Central America, to Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia; only a few pair of nests have been spoted at Peten thus far. It is possible to observe them in El Mirador National Park and Tikal National Park, as was did during the last expedition of our current project in the Reserva de Biósfera Maya.

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Falco deiroleucus in Temple IV, Mundo Perdido. Parque Nacional Tikal, Petén, Guatemala Photographs by Haniel López. October, 2022

On our last fieldtrip in October 2022, one of our goals was to photograph this amazing falcon and we succeeded! It was spotted in a tree next to Temple IV, in the complex known as the "Mundo Perdido." This documentation was very important because the species is in danger of extinction due to illegal hunting and the deterioration of the forest caused by human activities.

Currently, the Peregrine Fund organization has the only colony of captive orange-breasted hawks in the world to achieve their reproduction and save the species from extinction. In Tikal, the Peregrine Fund has provided its support by monitoring adult individuals and facilitating the reproduction between wild individuals. This resulted in the successful birth of two healthy chicks. Both were marked with rings to keep track of their survival.

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Falco deiroleucus in Temple IV, Mundo Perdido. Parque Nacional Tikal, Petén, Guatemala Photographs by Haniel López. October, 2022

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About this species

Here you can find its taxonomic classification and some information about its characteristics.

• Generally, it can be seen alone or in pairs.
• Their nesting occurs on large cliffs or emergent trees, in lowland areas or montane primary forest.
• It is one of the few species of the genus Falco that can be found in tropical forests.
• Its average size is 28 to 34 cm.
• Their diet includes bats and a great variety of birds such as pigeons, trogons, woodpeckers, among others; for which the ecological function of regulating populations of certain species is attributed to it.
• Can live up to 20 years.

Bibliography

• BIRDS COLOMBIA
• n.d.
• Halcón Colorado/Orange-breasted Falcon/Falco deiroleucus.
  
  Available online:
  https://birdscolombia.com/2020/01/17/halcon-colorado-orange-breasted-falcon-falco-deiroleucus/

Posted August 11, 2021

On the shores of Playa Quehueche in the northern direction of the municipality of Livingston, it was very curious to find different species of Arthropods. During the tour we stopped to photograph two very interesting species, since they were perched on the sand of the beach. One of them was an elegant Swallowtail butterfly of the genus Papilio (Papilionidae) and an imposing Luber grasshopper or lobster with intense red wings of the genus Taeniopoda (Romaleidae).

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Pamilionidae family includes more than 600 species worldwide. A particular characteristic of the Papilio genus is that most of all of these butterflies feature tails on their hind wings which resemble the tails of swallow family of birds, hence their name. Swallowtails butterflies feed on flowers, and can often be found in mud or damp sand where they sip dissolved minerals and salts. They beat their wings rapidly when feeding on nectar, as a balancing technique.

On the other hand, Romelidae currently consists of 64 genera and 437 species. Most Romaleidae grasshoppers are Neotropical and they are characterized by presenting an apical spine on the external surface of the posterior tibiae. The Romaleids have the largest acridoid species and body biomass known in nature. They have varied sizes, shapes and colors, and can be winged, brachioptera or, rarely, apterous (without wings).

References:
www.butterfliesathome.com/swallowtail-butterflies.htm www.scielo.org.co/pdf/rcen/v36n2/v36n2a27.pdf

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza

Posted September 16, 2021

Mirador del Cañon Reserve is located in the Cañon de Río Dulce area, administered by FUNDAECO. In it we were able to document many insects, one of our favorites was a very curious wasp hive. Their colors are yellow with black and they belong to the Vespidae family

Within the Vespidae family are grouped the common wasps that are characterized by measuring between 4.5 - 25 mm (adults) and having colorations ranging from yellow to black or dark blue. Both sexes have developed antennae. Their antennae have 12 segments in females and 13 in males. In Guatemala, 90 species have been recorded that inhabit heights between 0 - 4000 meters above sea level. They build their nests with mud or vegetable fibers. (Yoshimoto, Cano and Orellana, 2015).

Taxonomy of Vespidae family.

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Vespidae at Reserva Cañon de Rio Dulce, Livingston. September, 2021.Photo by Brandon Hidalgo, FLAAR Mesoamerica.

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza

Posted July 12, 2021

While we were walking along a path in the San Miguel La Palotada - El Zotz Biotope, we could hear the sound of the cicadas intensely, when we were about to leave in a tree we could observe the small insect on the trunk of a tree.

Cicadas are insects belonging to the superfamily Cicadoidea, they are well known for their shape and colors, you can easily see a skull, a bird and a butterfly, in the area of its head and thorax. They are also famous for being able to remain buried for up to 17 years (depending on the species); but, above all, they are very famous for their strident sounds. And why are Cicadas so noisy? They are able to produce these sounds because they possess the tymbal organ. The sound is produced only by males because is a mating call. According to Bauer, P. (n.d.) “each male cicada has a pair of these circular ridged membranes on the back and side surface of the first abdominal segment. Contraction of a tymbal muscle attached to the membrane causes it to bend, producing a clicking sound. The tymbal springs back when the muscle is relaxed. The frequency of the contractions of the tymbal muscle range from 120 to 480 times a second, which is fast enough to make it sound continuous to the human ear.”

What is most amazing of the noisy calling of Cicadas is that each species has its own distinctive song that only attracts females of its own kind. This allows several different species to coexist (Valdes, n.d.). So the next time you listen to Cicadas, pay attention because you won’t always listen to the same song twice.

Now that we are in Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo National Park we were able to photograph them in droves. We spent more than ten minutes observing them and finding their best angles. You can find them on the Yaxha road to Nakum and at Grupo Maler, in the Yaxha area. Possibly in more places, you just have to listen and observe the logs.

Chicharra - Order: Hemiptera
Family: Cicadidae

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Chicharra - Order: Hemiptera - Family: Cicadidae. Grupo Maler, Parque Nacional Yaxha. June 30, 2021. Photography: David Arrivillaga. Photo taken with a Sony A7R IV camera, Sony E 30mm F3.5 Macro lens, 1/125 sec, f/9, ISO 1600

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Sony A7R IV camera,Sony E 30mm F3.5 Macro lens, 1/100 sec, f/10, ISO 1600

Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza