I thought I would send you an update with some of the most exciting stuff that has been happening in my life lately. As you should know by now, I am very interested in predator-prey interactions, especially those involving snakes and monkeys. I was lucky enough to have a field day in which I witnessed (and took photos of) both a monkey and a boa as predators. Luckily, the boa was not eating one of my monkeys. As you can see below this boa was attacking a large iguana. The monkeys found this and pretty much everyone in the group came over to alarm. They seem to be especially excited to catch predation in action, as was I. It was pretty crazy to see this medium-sized boa attempting to eat such a large lizard. At this point the boa only had its body wrapped around the iguana several times, but had not started to ingest or even bite the iguana. Check it out!
During this time of year, right before the rainy season, many animals give birth since an abundance of rain leads to an abundance of food and thus gives the young a better chance of survival. The monkeys like to take advantage of this by raiding the nests of birds, squirrels, and other animals, especially coatis. Coatis are the raccoon-like mammals that I posted pictures of previously. They have litters of babies and thus can provide a lot of food if the monkeys happen to locate an active nest. I bet you didn't think that capuchins ate meat, did you? But actually it is a highly sought after food. When one monkey is eating a coati baby (or any kind of meat), pretty much everyone in the group gathers around to watch and beg for a piece. Sometimes these events can be rather gruesome since they often eat the coati baby stomach first and so it stays alive for a while, crying the whole time, while it is being eaten. Anyway, I got some great pictures of Skippy, an adult male, eating a baby coati. The body has been skinned and only the head is recognizable. So if this grosses you out then you should probably skip these pictures.
Skippy triumphantly holding his prize
Okay now that you are sufficiently disgusted (don't you wish you were a primatologist too?), I have some other (cute) monkey photos to make it all OK ;)
Pablo and Riot
Monkeys that have been playing in the mud (too dirty for me to identify)
The other highlight of my month involved basketball. As you know I have been practicing with a mens team in Bagaces. Last month, they had some tournament games in Liberia, but Erica and I weren't allowed to play because 5 of the 6 teams voted that women can't play. Yes, this is disturbing, but not totally unexpected. I don't think co-ed teams really exist in Costa Rica so the idea of us playing was crazy to a lot of people. Luckily, our Bagaces team is supportive of us and they decided to have a friendly home game with Tilaran so that we would be allowed to play. So on Monday, I suited up for Team Bagaces. The coolest thing was that I got to start the game!!! It was a lot of fun. Tilaran was really good and their guys were big and aggressive, but I hung in there and got some rebounds. And hopefully earned a little respect for female basketball players. Either way it was a pretty cool experience. I'm not sure if there will be any more games that I can attend before I leave Costa Rica, but at least I can say that I played in a Costa Rican basketball game at least once in my life. Check out the photos below.
Ready to play for Team Bagaces - Erica and Whitney (breaking the sex barrier?)
Team Bagaces in our badly lit home bball court
Hope things are good for all of you!
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