Dendrobium Fulum, an "antilope" Dendrobium hybrid

I photographed this plant in the garden of Edna Hamilton of St. Croix.  The plant is remarkable, not only for the beauty of its flowers but also for its floriferousness, the two inflorescences come from a single cane.  I plan to acquire one of this orchid.  Hopefully I will as successful as Edna in getting this plant to produce lots of flowers.

Anolis evermanni Stejneger 1904, in the forest of Rio Abajo

Today I was cleaning the patio and decided to remove an accumulation of sticks and leaves that had developed under a clump of palm stems.  When I did this, I broke several tunnels that termites had made into the leaf litter mass.  As a result worker termites were exposed, as well as a few warriors.  This is not an unusual event so I continued cleaning.  Then I noticed that an Anolis evermanni was eating the worker termites.  Anolis evermanni are normally an even green color.  This one had an overlay of darer green bands.  I attribute this to the excitement caused by the presence of an abundance of prey.  Anolis evermanni has shown a breathtaking amount of behavioral flexibility in the laboratory.  From what I saw while taking the photos, this particular lizard regarded me as an annoyance, but also as essentially harmless.  That's why I could get so close to it.  These lizard see me daily as I do garden chores or just walk around.  This might explain the boldness of this one, or maybe it was very, very hungry.  Anolis only eat the workers, the warriors have dark pointy heads full of a distasteful toxic glue that the lizards seem to loathe.

Eria spicata [D.Don]Hand.-Mazz. 1836, bought for $5 at a Moca garden shop

I visited a garden shop in the town of Moca to see what bromeliads they had.  The owner, after hearing I liked orchids, showed me this plant.  At the time it didn't had any flowers so I was not sold on the idea of buying this plant.  But then he say he would sell it for 5 dollars.  The price was too cheap not to indulge in a bit of speculative buying.  This plant has been easy to culture under the envvironmental conditions of my garden, although it has not bloomed as abundantly as I would have expected given the many pseudobulbs it has produced since I brought it.  Still, this plant has been with me for only a year, maybe in the future it will be more generous with its flowers.

A baby puertorican boa startles and delights

This baby Puertorican boa surprised, startled and delighted the personnel of the Puertorican Parrot project by spending the day wrapped around the rails of one of the paths in the aviary.  It was quite festy and would try to bite if someone got too close.  It provided me with a rare occasion to use my 100mm macro lens on an animal.  After I took a number of photos gently but firmly, I coaxed the snake to leave the rail and to move to the vegetation.  The little snake eventually slithered down the rail and moved away.  I did this at night fall so that it would not fall prey to daytime predators.

Dendrobium pulchellum Roxb. 1832, a Dendrobium with a white beard

The lip of this Dendrobium is unique among my Dendrobium.  The front edge of the lip is covered in short white hair in a way that resembles a beard.  This the flowers are pink and the lip has two large purple spots near the base.

Anolis cristatellus, displaying its dewlap

Compared to most other lizards I see locally, this male Anolis cristatellus has been surprisingly bold.  Instead of running away up the tree or hiding on the opposite side of the trunk, this lizard has held its ground calmly but alertly.  It had allowed me to get very close to him.  On ocassion it has showed its dewlap, this is a territorial display in this species.  Today I was able to get images of the lizard showing its dewlap.