August 23, 2018
VIVIPAROUS SKINK
While reading on the hut's porch, movement on a nearby rock caught my eye, the camera was near, so I got the picture at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823sk.jpg
The 10inch long (25cm), slender little lizard was moving fast, poking his nose into every hole and beneath every leaf, so I got only that one picture. A blown-up part of that image better showing the creature's front end is at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823sl.jpg
Bearing such a well defined white line along the side, that passes beneath the ear hole and the eye, and with the lizard's unusually slender form, it was easy to match our picture with one in Jonathan Campbell's Amphibians and Reptiles of Northern Guatemala, the Yucatán, and Belize, identified as the Viviparous Skink, Mabuya brachypoda.
On the Internet it was hard to find mention of the genus Mabuya. Now the species is known as MARISORA BRACHYPODA, and no commonly used English name for it has been agreed on, so I'm using Campbell's Viviparous Skink name. The term "viviparous" describes the fact that this species, like all reptiles, produces eggs, but the eggs hatch inside the mother so that shell-free, wiggling young are born, like baby mammals.
Viviparous Skinks are distributed from southern Mexico through Central America to Costa Rica. Campbell writes that the species lives mostly on the ground but readily climbs, and often is seen sunning on fence posts and lower tree limbs. "Almost invariably, the lizard is near dense piles of rubbish, logs, or thick vegetation into which it can escape if disturbed, but it seems to prefer relatively dry microhabitats," he adds, also noting that often it's spotted around human habitations, sometimes even in thatch roofs. All that fits our environment perfectly, so the little fellow must feel at home here.
If you're wondering why the Viviparous Skink isn't an anole, gecko, whiptail, racerunner or iguana, you might want to review our "Types of Lizard" page at https://www.backyardnature.net/lizkinds.htm
A more technical discussion of "Lizard Classification" is available at https://www.backyardnature.net/lizclass.htm
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COLLARED ANTEATER ROADKILL
My first and only encounter with a live Collared Anteater, Tamandua mexicana took place in the Yucatan back in 2005. You can read about that memorable account at https://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/anteater.htm
Then I described the creature as one of the most handsome free-roaming mammals I'd ever seen, and that's still the case. Therefore, I had mixed feelings when on my Sunday morning biking trip to Temozón to buy fruit I came across one a car had run over, at the side of the road. It was sad seeing such a beautiful, rarely observed animal left dead like that. On the other hand, I was glad to know that they're still in the area, unless this was the last one.
In 2005 I didn't have a camera to photograph the one I met then, so I photographed the roadkill, both to document the sighting, and because the coat of this animal is so plush and elegantly patterned that it can be admired even on one in this state. The picture isn't as gory as it could be, so if you want to see what a Collared Anteater looks like, go to https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823tm.jpg
Collared Anteaters not only eat ants but also termites and bees, and probably a little fruit. Their hard, sharp claws on the powerful forearms are used to break into insect nests, and to defend themselves. The claws on the forefeet are so curved that the animal walks on the feet outer surfaces to avoid puncturing their own palms.
Probably the species is more common here than it seems, the reason being that mainly the are nocturnal. Normally they spend their days in hollow tree trunks or the burrows of other animals. They're solitary and range over territory that average from 250 to 930 acres (100 to 375ha), depending on the environment.
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MID-AIR MATING THORNBUSH DASHERS
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/dasher.htm we admire the Thornbush Dasher Dragonflies that commonly patrol near the surface of the rancho's little cement-lined pond. This week I happened to have the camera pointed just where a mating couple chose to hoover, and the camera focused on them instead of the background as it usually does, so now you can see the nifty shot at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823df.jpg
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WALLOWING PIGS
If you want to see a couple of contented pigs, go to https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823pg.jpg
The rancho hosts about 40 Iberian Pigs, which aren't sold or killed for food. The owner just likes to have them. Possibly they enjoy the best lives of any pigs in Mexico. Now that the rainy season has begun and their holes stay full of water, they spend a lot of time doing exactly what's shown in the picture.
Why do pigs wallowing in mud holes so much? In our hot climate it's definitely a cooling experience. Pigs lack functional sweat glands, and are almost incapable of panting, so mud wallowing is an obvious cooler-offer. However, even during our rare northers in February or so, when I'm obliged to put on a shirt and long trousers, you see them wallowing with as much gusto as during the hottest day, so there must be other reasons.
At the root of the wallowing urge may be that pigs are related to hippopotamuses and whales, so that might lie behind their general urge to be in shallow, murky water.
Also, a layer of mud provides sunscreen, and surely helps keep horseflies from biting. Sometimes it's hard to spot the muddy pigs because they're the same color as other mud around them, so maybe their ancestors benefited from this camouflage effect, and evolved predispositions for mud baths.
During the dry season when their wallowing holes sometimes dry up, their pen didn't stink as it does now. I think they must poop in their wallowing holes, and maybe that protects them from predators, or at least makes them feel that they smell good.
When they exit their holes and the mud dries on their skin often they very vigorously rub themselves against tree trunks or rocks, and probably this knocks off ticks and other skin parasites that get dried into the caked mud.
Whatever their reasons for wallowing, each time I pass by their pen and see how contented they look, it makes me feel good just seeing someone enjoying themselves so much.
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ARMY ANTS IN THE REFRIGERATOR
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/armyant.htm on our Army Ant page we see army ants swarming across the land, invading my hut, plundering wasp nests of their larvae, and other things, but this week I saw them doing something different. It was late in the day, a storm was about to hit, and when I came to the hut to fix a bowl of granola to enjoy while watching the storm, I opened the junked storage-refrigerator's door to find several hand-sized masses of fair-sized black army ants scattered here and there, with winding lines of fast-moving individual ants connecting them. Apparently the roving army had decided to bivouac before the storm hit, and my refrigerator, which until now I'd thought was more or less insect-proof, was handy. You can see the corner of one mass at the edge of my plastic egg container at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823aa.jpg
Notice that certain ants are hanging upside-down with their back legs hooked on irregularities on the egg container's surface and maybe other ants, and that some ants are atop others. Outside the refrigerator, where one corner overhung the rock it was propped up on, a better developed blob had formed, this one dangling and composed of several layers of ants dangling from other ants, seen at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823ab.jpg
These pictures aren't so good, but the late afternoon, stormy weather light was so limited that I had use a slow shutter speed (1/6th second), the ants were moving fast, and several were biting me. The most blurry picture shows an army ant stalactite forming inside the refrigerator at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180823ac.jpg
Over the years I've learned to let army ants do what they want to. If they invade the hut, just leave the hut until they're gone, having cleared out all the spiders, tarantulas, scorpions and the like. However, that day it had begun raining hard, so the ants and I lived together awhile. I upset them a little chopping firewood and jarring the floor, and then they didn't like my campfire's smoke, so by the time it stopped rainy we were all agreed that they needed to move on, and they did.
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WHY ARMY ANTS?
When I opened my storage-refrigerator to find masses of army ants in seething, black blobs and dangling stalactites, despite my life of admiring Nature exactly the way She is, for a split second I just had to ask myself: Why did the Universal Creative Impulse see fit to create army ants that rampage through the landscape promiscuously and insatiably killing and dismembering all forms of small life, no matter how valuable to the ecosystem the prey is, and how innocent and how pretty, and now why have they come marauding into my refrigerator?
Of course the answer is that Nature obsessively evolves her systems toward ever greater diversity, with lifeforms arising to exploit more and more nuanced ecological niches, and army ants have found their niche. Sometimes humans can't get their heads around the fact that the process is utterly impersonal, not at all taking into account the individual who happens to stand in the way of the evolving diversity steamroller. However, there are thousands of years of historical accounts of absolutely innocent and splendid individuals, communities, and even entire civilizations, being obliterated on the principle of survival of the fittest -- with the "fittest" often being the most aggressively violent or with more sophisticated weaponry and/or strategy, or maybe they're just the most successful liars -- and "luck" is a fitness, too.
So, the question of "Why are there army ants" isn't so interesting, because the answer is obvious. More fascinating is this question:
What are we humans to think of a Universal Creative Impulse -- a Creator -- that has designed the Universe so that it works like this? "This" including the fact that vividly aware, feeling individuals find themselves in the situation whether they like it or not.
In the end, the answer that religious people provide probably is as good as any. They, seeing a completely innocent, beautiful child die of a hideous disease or maybe a drunk driver, say -- at least if they're beyond the "gone to be with Jesus" stage -- "If you truly believe in the Creator, you'll know that there's a Greater Cause we humans may not be able to grasp, and that things will turn out OK in the end."
But, I get stuck on that word "believe." My experience is that religious "believing" is telling yourself again and again that you "believe" in a deity watching over and protecting "believers," and that you do indeed "believe" whichever dogma you've agreed to accept, despite a Universe of evidences to the contrary.
This week's army ants reminded me that all I can "believe" is that I -- whatever "I" am -- am a component of the evolving Universe, which at the Life-on-Earth level is populated by predators and prey, parasites and scavengers, and us humans with onboard computers enabling us rise above the basic categories, or fit into several categories at the same time, if we want. And I truly believe, with religious fervor, this reality of ours is infinitely mysterious, and from a certain perspective infinitely beautiful. Also, that I'm stuck with it all until I cease to exist.
However, the whole situation is so interesting, and I'm programmed to be curious, so I'm OK with the setup, especially because it's such a temporary state.
And so, sometimes I get army ants in my refrigerator, a few of them bite me, but I get to tell you about it and the ants did put an end to a couple of cockroaches I'd been unable to shoo from the refrigerator, and the Universe goes on.
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Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,
Jim
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