Aripo Savanna & its Herpetofauna

Trinidad’s Aripo Savanna complex of tropical grasslands, palm islands, marsh forest and moriche palms with numerous slow moving streams, ponds, and puddles. On June 18-19 the Herp Group from the Trinidad and Tobago field Naturalists Club surveyed the herpetofauna. The weather cooperated to a degree with occasional showers and thunderstorms and blistering heat, which creates a very nice sauna-like effect. The TTFNC-HC will summarize the results elsewhere, but here are a few of the highlights.
Rare creatures are sometimes sited on the savanna. Here is Graham White looking 
for them while well camoflaged.

Aripo Savnna 1. The largest remaining remanant of the savanna.

Stevland Charles and Edmund Charles inspect Marsh Forest Vegetation
A Marsh Forest Pond
An Aripo Savanna Sundew.
Leptodactylus fuscus, the most commonly seen and heard amphibian on the Savanna,
The Scorpion Mud Turtle, Kinosternon scorpioides, a savanna and marsh
 forest inhabitat.
The Trinidad Wood Turtle, or Galup, Rhinoclemmys punctularia, another Marsh
Forest - Savanna chelonian.

Predator & prey. The Horse Whip Snake, Oxybelis aeneus and 
 its prey, the Streaked Lizard, Gonatodes vittatus.
A male Hypsiboans punctata (Hylidae) that was calling from this leaf.
The poorly known microhylid frog, Elachistocleis surinamensis
 is quite common  in the Marsh Forest and at the forest edge.


One of the day groups, with Mike Rutherford examining a turtle (middle).

Labels: , , , ,