Tuesday, 31 December 2019

24-3-2017 RANCHO NATURALISTA, COSTA RICA - BAY HEADED TANAGER (Tangara gyrola)


The bay-headed tanager (Tangara gyrola) is a medium-sized passerine bird. This tanager is a resident breeder in Costa Rica, Panama, South America south to Ecuador, Bolivia and north-western Brazil, and on Trinidad.

It occurs in forests, particularly in wetter areas. The bulky cup nest is built in a tree and the normal clutch is two brown-blotched white eggs. The female incubates the eggs for 13–14 days to hatching, with another 15–16 days before the chicks fledge.

These are social birds which eat mainly fruit, usually swallowed whole. Insects are also taken, mainly from the underside of branches.


25-12-2019 MONTE CORONA, VALENCIA - LONGHORN BEETLE (Oxypleurus nodieri)


Oxypleurus nodieri is a rare Mediterranean longhorn beetle associated with a variety of pines [✮][✳]. The larvae feed in recently dead branches and pupate in shallow pupal cells built in sapwood. The adults are nocturnal and can be found early in the spring. The species has been described from France by Étienne Mulsant in 1839 [❖]. Morphology of genus Oxypleurus has been well described by Petr Švácha and John F. Lawrence in 2014 [✧].