Hi everyone! First things first, today was a great day for beetle spotting! We went on a small hike before lunch down the Monkey Tail Trail and found some great beetles. The first was a patent leather beetle (of the species Odontotaenius disjunctus) of about 3.5 cm long among the leaf litter, the second was a small chestnut brown colored scarab beetle (identified by its segmented antennae and fairly round body among other things) of the family Scarabaeidae. We also found a 3 cm long grub of a beetle on a log on the side of the Monkey Tail Trail and an empty black elytra abandoned in the middle of the trail. The elytra was a little difficult to identify, but it was about 3.5 cm long, had one flat edge and gently curved to the middle. Perhaps it could have come from something similar to a flower beetle or another firefly (family Lampyridae).
On our second trek along the Maya trail we also found a black beetle with reddish spots on its elytra about 1 cm that could possibly be of the genus Mycetina. Last, but definitely not least, I just identified another black ground beetle that appeared to be of the same species as yesterday’s (family Carabidae) crawling along the floor below my chair.
Other exciting things we did today was explore the Las Cuevas Cave. We went down into the different zones of the cave (entrance zone, twilight zone, and dark zone) and explored the creatures and geological structures of the cave. Some interesting things we observed there were a peccary skeleton, some wrinkle-nosed bats, and pieces of ancient Mayan pottery. Afterward we set up some pitfall traps of urine and water along the Maya trail to investigate if canopy dwelling species (particularly arthropods) were more limited to nitrogen than forest floor dwelling species and looked at what might have been some Mayan plazas. We then climbed to the top of what appears to be a hill but is suspected to be an ancient Mayan ceremonial temple. That’s all for now everybody! Thanks for reading! 🙂
