I learned a couple things about the Zenaida Dove today. One is that it’s the national bird of Anguilla, where it is usually called the Turtle Dove. I actually might have already known that. I also learned that it makes pigeon milk. Also known as crop milk, it is something that is made by most doves and pigeons and a […]

Here’s another example of interesting insect behavior, a congregation of the scarab-hunting wasp Campsomeris trifasciata on the underside of a leaf. These wasps are solitary. Rather than having a nest where the wasps raise their young, eggs are laid individually be females inside beetle grubs. In one case I found online, a group of males were observed congregating on the […]

Ghost ants are tiny ants with pale abdomens, and you may have them in your home. They are found in so much of the tropical world, we aren’t sure where they are originally from. They are a common household pest, where they are attracted to sugars or oils. We’ve had a few species of ant in our apartment, but this […]

True bugs, insects from the order Hemiptera, have piercing, sucking mouthparts, like a pointy straw. There are tens of thousands of kinds of true bug and they eat many different things, but whatever they eat, they eat like it’s a Capri Sun. Assassin bugs, like the one in this photo, typically eat other insects, but this one seems to be […]

The other day I saw dozens of red-eared sliders who were eating some dead fish, but only the most persistent (hungriest?) stuck around once I came over to take photos. These turtles are an introduced species that I’ve mostly seen in Fresh Pond. They are very popular as pets, and they were probably introduced to the island as escaped or […]

The bellyache bush has tiny flowers that are popular amongst nectar drinking insects like butterflies, bees and flies. But it’s a dangerous meal. They’re the best place to find crab spiders and lynx spiders. These spiders typically wait near on or near the flowers to attack unsuspecting insects. The crab spider in particular is often extremely well camouflaged. As you […]

This afternoon I walked from Grand Case to a meeting in Anse Marcel and stopped along the way to take photos of some of the blues and hairstreaks that were feeding on the flowers of bellyache bush on the hills around Bell Valley (or whatever the real name is for the valley between Grand Case and Anse Marcel…if you know, […]

Here’s a brightly-colored leafhopper with four nymphs (immature leafhoppers) of different sizes. I don’t think I had ever seen it before yesterday when I took this photo. Even after over three years, there is always a new animal to discover on St. Martin. I haven’t identified this one yet. There are thought to be perhaps 100,000 species of leafhopper in […]

I may have saved this gulf fritillary butterfly this morning. It was newly emerged from its chrysalis, but had fallen on the ground before its wings had hardened. After emerging from their chrysalis, butterflies have soft, wrinkled wings. They typically suspend themselves while they pump fluid into their wings to expand them. Then the wings harden. This butterfly had already […]

I had some time to kill near Philipsburg yesterday and I didn’t want to bring too much camera gear, so I decided to do some macro photography using natural light. Normally when I take photos of very small things, I use a flash, because the depth of field (the part of the photo which is in focus) is very small […]