|
Malacological
wonders
As said, nowhere
else in the world you will find such a diversity of land dwelling prosobranchs,
but there is a great variety of pulmonates too. Jamaica is the home
to many interesting and beautiful species. Names as Annularia pulchra
should tell you about some of the mythical species to be found.
The
eastern mountains
Climbing the
Blue Mountains in the east, although being of igneus origin, will take
you to a European style landscape, raspberries are commonly found, and
green and luxuriant vegetation covers the middle altitudes, this is
the coffee area of Jamaica, the problem is that most of the original
forest have been or is now been cleared and
erosion is perceived heavily on the hilltops; this forest is the
home for Pleurodonte carmelita, now really scarce due to these
reasons; further on near the summit
a magical cloud forest is found, not so interesting malacologically;
magnificent views specially at sunrise, Cuba's peaks are often seen
on cloudless mornings..
More to the east
the John Crow mountains are located, limestone is widely found as interesting
species as Pleurodonte strangulata, Zaphysema olivaceum,
and Pleurodonte chemnitzianum. A lot of orchards though are covering
many areas and bamboo growing wild following the human actions, this
kind of areas are not favourites for these animals, one should find
the original forest.
This is also
the home for the largest new world butterfly: Papilio homerus,
mostly found at the lowlands, it's populations have declined in this
area because of parasitism.
The area also
keeps as a treasure a diverse ornitological fauna, among others, the
famous Doctor Bird, a hummingbird with a long twin tail, it may honour
your visit if you pay attention to the upper branches of trees.
A
strange encounter
Here
comes to my mind a barely mollusc related encounter I had the last time
on the top of the John Crows. There with my friend, Arthur (the Cooney
Hunter), we reached the best snail site he knew in the mountains, it
was a marvellous morning with a really diverse fauna seen, and a good
catch of landsnails... and there in the middle of the smoke coming from
Arthur's mosquito fire I was searching in the leaf litter for Pleurodontes
strangulata, then, suddenly a sluglike animal came walking slowly
from under those leaves, I took it as I had never seen such a 2"
long slug there, it was not so soft as the slugs are supposed to be,
and easily noticed were it's metamera and something small around the
animal's edge, then while trying to remember former zoology lessons,
it turned it's two antennae and....sput into my eye a sticky product!,
I screamed and thought about all those Jamaica Tourist Board leaflets
advertising how safe was Jamaica's wildlife.....So this funny animal
dropped from my hand to the leaf floor, I recovered in a while happy
not to had lost my eye, and thought that these kind of behaviour is
never taught at the university when talking about Phyllum Onychophora,
it was a Peripatus!!!, a living fossil, the gap between annelids and
arthropods. Then I decided to catch it, and as a revenge, store it at
my victorian style preserved animal collection, but wonder, it never
turned out again, although I saw where it dropped with my other eye.....
days later when giving my account of happenings to a friend he told
me: You are never going to be a real biologist!...I asked why?... cause
if you were a real biologist you should had held to your specimen as
much as possible not to loose it, might it bite you, sput to your eye
or....
So,
this is all......I had been asking fellow researchers about such an
animal, never reported to see one like that!...mistery?
|
|
A
karstic dream
The
"Cockpit Country", this karstic wonder, has been recently been
proposed as a national park, no doubt the next important discoveries will
be done there, not much research has been done in the past but now many
groups are proposing new projects and the foundation of a research centre,
the aims are to preserve the magical enviroment and planning a sustainable
developement of the surrounding comunities, many still using the slash
and burn agriculture or taking wood in large amounts from the forest,
the local people is the one to decide of their future, at last a good
way of working not just setting the perimeter of a living museum!.
Many
of the most beautiful species come from this area, Adamsiella pearmaneana,
Annularia fimbriatula, Neocyclotus seminudum, Pleurodonte
fuscolabris, Cyclopilsbria striosa, Cyclojamaicia suturalis,
Eutrochatella tankervillei, and Eutrochatella pulchella.
Had
the chance to spend long times at this location, my greatest discovery
was realizing that being nocturnal animals, the wet limestone areas illuminated
by fire flies during the magical nights of the Cockpit, were the worlds
where these fantastic creatures had evolved; thousands of noisy insects
appear at sunset, the sound of tree frogs, marine toads, and diverse animals,
the quite fresh and moist wind. This is what they see and feel most of
the time, this is when active; at our time, daytime, we find just a hot
and dry limestone wall and we desperately try to find them questioning
how is it possible that they do like such a place for making a living.
So
most times a photo of a type locality of one of these animals is incomplete,
you should consider all the other elements ... , of course it is not possible
to show all in a photograph, but now try using your imagination.
Sinistrals
This
location also brought me the first sinistral specimen of my life (later
on, more have been found... please, have a look at our Museum Wing cabinet
"Conchylia Sinistralia").
It is a curious story this one:
After
spending a month in company of the mosquitoes and the few Rasta friends,
and families living nearby, all this in a nice wooden hut, at the edge
of the Cockpit Country, I had found a extremely nice snailing spot, there
I usually spent the days in search of the most difficult species for finding
alive as Eutrochatella tankervillei, and Pleurodonte blainbridgei,
one has to look under huge heaps of stones for finding them attached to
the underside, always at the most unreachable areas; there, days and hours
went by, until one day just when I had arrived to the spot I began looking
under some stones again, and Voila!, I saw it, I were just saying to myself
(you can see my dealer mind): " Oh, Please!, I hope it is not broken!
(So, at least I was not praying for a F+++/G specimen just that it was
not broken!). And a nice specimen it was!.
But
what was more curious it that under that stone I also found a young Jamaican
Boa as the guardian of that treasure!; having stored my sinistral in its
box, I tried catching it as well as local scientist were marking them
for studies, releasing them back to their original home, but it was not
possible to do it without hurting it, so science had to wait!.
Taking
the trail back home I was desperately looking forward telling about my
finding to anyone, the people turned, as always, to had gone to the city
for a visit or... so I just found some neighbour's kids that were coming
from the sugar cane field, I showed the sinistral and a dextral and asked
them about the differences they could see, answer: They have different
colours!.
Next
page>>
|
2000