Tarantula Wasp

Yes, spotting a tarantula under the tree swing yesterday was quite exciting, but watching it succumb to the powers of the tarantula wasp was absolutely amazing. “Mom, mom a huge thing, I think it’s a tarantula moving,” Michael called for others to enjoy watching the large arachnid. Sally arrived to see the spider crawling and noticed a large pair of red wings on top of it. “Oh my!” they thought, “the tarantula has caught a wasp!” They then realized the truth of the moment as the wasp gained control and started dragging the tarantula across the grass. Putting two and two together, Sally exclaimed, “I think that’s a tarantula wasp!” Michael responds excitedly with another, “Oh my, lets take a step closer.” Sally knowing better after hearing that this two inch wasp delivers one of the most painful stings of the animal world, decides they should keep their distance and not risk upsetting the determined predator.

Over the next several minutes, they observed the wasp haul its limp prey about five meters from the tree swing to the taller grass at the yard’s edge. John and I arrived home at this moment to join the Wild Kingdom moment and, yes, I knew that this was just the beginning of a fantastically gruesome relationship. The wasp buzzed off and burrowed nearby below the thick grass, and reappeared to cart the spider a few more inches. The pace of transport had slowed. It was like watching someone pulling an overloaded luggage cart through a crowded train station, as the spider would get caught on a grass blade and the wasp would attempt to maneuver it this way and that. Eventually, the wasp pulled the paralyzed tarantula under the grass and out of sight into a its new home for the next few weeks.

Spider wasps are common throughout the world, but rarely observed by urbanites, so we felt as if we were capturing a scene from Life In The Undergrowth. The wasp hides the still living spider in a burrow and lays an egg on it. The egg hatches, and the hungry larva feasts on this nutritious food source. The larva develops, morphs and leaves the burrow as an adult wasp to look for a mate and eventually a tarantula to play host for its young.

 Many species of wasp lay their eggs on living hosts or just eat the prey and regurgitate it to larva. We have seen wasp eggs stuck to the back of caterpillars in our tomato garden in Clarendon Hills. I’ll soon have to write about the cordyceps fungi. Ahhhh, the wonders of nature. Signed M.

 

The Dog Days!

If you’ve been keeping up with us, you know there is no shortage of 4-legged friends here in Monteverde. The one that has caught our eye of late, is new to the mountain, about a year-old and is sweet with the children. He is called “Bebe”. Imagine a thin “collie” type dog. Bebe has been spending quite a bit of time at the Schaefer house and we all have gotten close to him until two days ago when I saw him rolling around in the side pasture in the dead armadillo (see previous post). Right then and there, he moved down to the bottom of my “who is my least annoying dog today” list. The stench was horrendous (if not having a dead armadillo wasn’t bad enough, now we’ve got it walking around on this dog…YUCK). The only conclusion we came to was that the dog was doing this to ward off attacks and advances from the other dogs in the neighborhood. We now know this to be true as Bebe was getting quite the ‘raz’ from the other pooches. We came to find out from a friend that Bebe had been ‘just’ adopted by Stella (the elderly lady) that owns the Bakery and other establishments here on the mountain. She lives in the hills and does not have any children to frolic with and keep Bebe as active as he clearly wants to be..after all, he’s just a pup. After a trip to the vet yesterday, a good washing, de-worming, de-fleeing and getting fixed, he was ready to spend his first night with Stella. Today while playing with the boys out front, there was Bebe with his adoptive mom, Veronica – Veronica tells me Bebe (now called Strider) ran away last night and wants to be with a family as he ended up on Veronica’s door step. So where does that leave me? He looks aweful lovable now, all fluffy and sweet smelling! Veronica tells me she would take him, but she already has 3 dogs of her own. Lots of folks have dogs here for many reasons, one of them for protection as petty-theft can be a problem. I am sure Bebe/Strider will be a topic at the dinner table tonight…stay tuned on his fate!

The boys spotted a deer in our side yard two nights ago – we missed it, but Kyle, the 8 year old boy (neighbor) vouches that yep, it was a deer. Kyle spent an hour in the pasture after school picking guavas with the boys and later took over the duty of pushing them on the swing…did I mention we love Kyle? We were happy when he accepted our invitation for dinner (Michael and John were delighted, so proud that they had a ‘big boy’ friend staying for dinner…very cute. Kyle proceeded to do the dishes post spaghetti – he said…’you feed me…I do the dishes’…what a great role model for our boys!

Last night Mike and the boys grabbed their flashlights about 7 p.m. and off they went looking for critters outside. Everything was pretty status-quo (your run of the mill finds…katydids, roaches, beetles) when all of a sudden, they came blasting through the door “mom, you’ve got to see this…hurry, hurry, hurry.” Crawling around the rocks that line our firepit was the grand-daddy of Wolf spiders – bigger than my hand fully extended (I kid you not). When I asked Mike if there was a chance it could find its way into our house (through cracks in the concrete, broken screens or under doors, Mike replied “no way, this thing is huge and way too big to squeeze through” – in some strange way, this was music to my ears and gave me some comfort.

So, just when you think you’ve had all the wildlife you can take, you are surprised with another find!

As you can see by the picture, our hammock is up and operational! I have yet to relax in it, but have dibs for sure sometime this weekend.

We enjoyed homemade tomales from Goudy’s mother-in-law last night – she is making some empinadas and breads for us today and will be by in the next thirty minutes…YUM – sure beats the beans and rice we seem to find on the Schaefer menu daily around here.

P.S. - A late photo added - Ginna - we love ya girlfriend! Our boys are completely engrossed whenever you are around and you break open a book - you have the gift!

Signed: S

Up Close and Personal with Capuchins

The last couple of days have been filled with wildlife opportunities galore. Friday, as Michael and John played at the rock-pile across from Stella’s bakery, we were beckoned by Miguel (our friend from the Hotel Bosque) to come see the white faced monkeys in action across from his reception area. He had a huge bundle of bananas with him and we hurried quickly behind him to get a glimpse of these animals. In a word…AMAZING! This troop was about 20 in size, with 3 ‘bosses’ from what Miguel tells me. Miguel extended his hand with the bananas and the monkeys came right down from the tree to snatch them out of his hand. He then proceeded to high-five one of them – awesome! He gave bananas to the boys and told them to be patient – however the monkeys weren’t sure what to make of us, so Miguel assured us that in four or five more visits, they would feel comfortable with us, make the quick descent down from the tree tops and too feed from our hands. I have never been so close to a monkey where I could actually see their face, (I mean really see it) WOW –
Unfortunately, my pics are blurry and do not do the experience justice, they move so fast it was hard to get a good photo!

The day prior, we discovered a little treasure in our extra bathroom toilet….a drowned mouse. We figure the mouse must have been thirsty, leaned in for a drink and that’s all she wrote. After talking with Mike (‘do we flush or retrieve?’ Mike decided to flush and just have it decay with all the other ‘stuff’ – pleasant!.

We found our first scorpion (albeit dead) in a kitchen cabinet….yes, inside the house. A little thing, but none the less, you really have to be ‘one’ with the bugs or you’ll never make it here!

A couple of other finds from Dad and the boys as well…caterpillars and not sure what the other creature is?

The wind was quite strong today – good for drying clothes, not so good for the stench it was blowing directly our way. As I went for a run, I left the three boys in charge of discovering just what was causing the odor and where in the world was it coming from. As I arrived back 45 minutes later, their task was done. They led me to the edge of our property and there about 100 feet away lay a dead armadillo. We are hoping the vultures circling overhead find this little treasure and do away with it pronto so we can again enjoy the fresh mountain air.

Signed: S

P.S. – As mentioned in a previous blog – the artwork (compliments of Michael and John) adorns our living room/dining room wall – we have a great little nook outside on our patio for crafts and painting – the recent paintings were done using foam cubes (I cut up a large piece of foam the boys ripped out of one of the mattresses (how’s that for resourceful)?