museumguy
Active member
Hi all, remember me? I just got back from a weeklong trip to Costa Rica for work, and on one of the days we spent at a secluded beach, and I have to say I was thinking of y'all (and my old tanks) pretty much the entire day. I saw so many cool animals that my coworkers couldn't really appreciate but I figured you all would get a kick out of hearing about it here. I have a lot of photos and video to sort through but I took some photos which I will try to share here in the future if there is interest.
We drove down this pothole filled dirt road in the middle on nowhere, turn off of it onto an even more potholed filled road, drive a couple miles and pull up to this gorgeous hidden beach (Pacific side just a few miles south of Nicaragua border) just as high tide is coming in. I hop into the water and in about knee deep water I'm suddenly surrounded by schools of porcupine puffer fish who were coming in to pick off whatever invertebrates that had been stranded by low tide. Dogface puffers dart all around as well. Very cool. My friend starts fishing and snags a porcupine puffer on the back with his hook, and it blows up to the size of a basketball and doesn't deflate for about 5 minutes as it bounces around in the surf.
There was an outcropping of rocks right at the surface of the water that had 1000s of little pockets of water that was home to 100s of crabs (gorilla crabs?) and millions of snails, everything from what looked like ceriths to turbos to bumblebees and everything in between. Hermit crabs really seemed to like conch shells, and were all over the place.
One area about 10 feet in diameter had probably 100 of these little pockets of landlocked-except-at-high-tide water and only in this little spot did I see anemones. Each pocket had 1-3 of these anemones that I alternated between thinking they were rock anemones, or mini carpet anemones but now think they may have been some sort of zoanthid as they looked a lot like this http://www.elegancereef.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10008/170106 001.jpg
Also in these pools were dragonette fish that came out of the water. As soon as high tide started to come in the would flop/walk around on the rocks trying to get to the main body of water. I chased them around but there were surprisingly agile out of the water.
After lunch we drove about half an hour to slightly more trafficed beach, though we were still the only non-locals there. Large pelicans were at this beach and my friend tore off into the surf to try and get close, which was at the point that we also learned this beach had loads of round ray stingrays (which I had previously displayed at the museum). She got tagged by one on her foot but was OK after some rest. For the first hour or so I saw a different stringray after few seconds on the sandbed around me. A single neon rainbow colored wrasse of some sort zoomed by and was gone in a second.
We cast net for some sardines and what I think where chromis of some sort that we used as bait as we tried to catch something big for dinner, and though something very large bit the front half of the sardines clean off they missed the hook and got away. While standing in belly button deep water I had many jellyfish rub up against me and more than one that got caught in the legs of my swim trunks. Not fun having a ball of angry tentacles stuck there...
Not much else interesting in the way of see life for the rest of the day, though we did find a bunch of giant chitins and other fun crabs as the tide went out. Once it got dark we had one of the most awesome displays of life I've ever seen though, as there were bioluminescent plankton living in the water. They gave off little sparks of light only when disturbed, so as we ran out into the water in the dark the ocean briefly lit up with millions of sparks of green with each step. Some would get pushed onto the sand with the waves as you walked on the beach you left green footprints behind in the dark. Super cool.
Anyways, it was a very fun trip. Other highlights included monkeys, volcanos, hot springs, giant beetles and grabbing a pit viper in the dark accidentally and managing to get away without being bit. Oh, and lots of butterflies of course.
Hope you enjoyed my tail, haha. I hope everyone is well, I miss you guys and the tanks a lot! Cheers from St Louis.
-Tad
We drove down this pothole filled dirt road in the middle on nowhere, turn off of it onto an even more potholed filled road, drive a couple miles and pull up to this gorgeous hidden beach (Pacific side just a few miles south of Nicaragua border) just as high tide is coming in. I hop into the water and in about knee deep water I'm suddenly surrounded by schools of porcupine puffer fish who were coming in to pick off whatever invertebrates that had been stranded by low tide. Dogface puffers dart all around as well. Very cool. My friend starts fishing and snags a porcupine puffer on the back with his hook, and it blows up to the size of a basketball and doesn't deflate for about 5 minutes as it bounces around in the surf.
There was an outcropping of rocks right at the surface of the water that had 1000s of little pockets of water that was home to 100s of crabs (gorilla crabs?) and millions of snails, everything from what looked like ceriths to turbos to bumblebees and everything in between. Hermit crabs really seemed to like conch shells, and were all over the place.
One area about 10 feet in diameter had probably 100 of these little pockets of landlocked-except-at-high-tide water and only in this little spot did I see anemones. Each pocket had 1-3 of these anemones that I alternated between thinking they were rock anemones, or mini carpet anemones but now think they may have been some sort of zoanthid as they looked a lot like this http://www.elegancereef.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10008/170106 001.jpg
Also in these pools were dragonette fish that came out of the water. As soon as high tide started to come in the would flop/walk around on the rocks trying to get to the main body of water. I chased them around but there were surprisingly agile out of the water.
After lunch we drove about half an hour to slightly more trafficed beach, though we were still the only non-locals there. Large pelicans were at this beach and my friend tore off into the surf to try and get close, which was at the point that we also learned this beach had loads of round ray stingrays (which I had previously displayed at the museum). She got tagged by one on her foot but was OK after some rest. For the first hour or so I saw a different stringray after few seconds on the sandbed around me. A single neon rainbow colored wrasse of some sort zoomed by and was gone in a second.
We cast net for some sardines and what I think where chromis of some sort that we used as bait as we tried to catch something big for dinner, and though something very large bit the front half of the sardines clean off they missed the hook and got away. While standing in belly button deep water I had many jellyfish rub up against me and more than one that got caught in the legs of my swim trunks. Not fun having a ball of angry tentacles stuck there...
Not much else interesting in the way of see life for the rest of the day, though we did find a bunch of giant chitins and other fun crabs as the tide went out. Once it got dark we had one of the most awesome displays of life I've ever seen though, as there were bioluminescent plankton living in the water. They gave off little sparks of light only when disturbed, so as we ran out into the water in the dark the ocean briefly lit up with millions of sparks of green with each step. Some would get pushed onto the sand with the waves as you walked on the beach you left green footprints behind in the dark. Super cool.
Anyways, it was a very fun trip. Other highlights included monkeys, volcanos, hot springs, giant beetles and grabbing a pit viper in the dark accidentally and managing to get away without being bit. Oh, and lots of butterflies of course.
Hope you enjoyed my tail, haha. I hope everyone is well, I miss you guys and the tanks a lot! Cheers from St Louis.
-Tad
