Chicken of the woods

Believe it or not, this sulfur shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus) is an edible bracket fungus that is touted for tasting like chicken! While it's native to both North America & Europe, this beautiful specimen was growing on a Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) that is actually native to the Mediterranean & a common element in Santa Monica residential areas.  The sulfur shelf is a saprophyte (detritivore) and causes internal rot on the trees it infects.  What's fascinating is that it's also possible for the sulfur shelf to absorb some of the toxic properties of its host tree; which sometimes can lead to gastrointestinal problems for folks that eat the fungus growing on trees like eucalyptus & some conifers.  Here's a great paper by Turkoglu et al. 2007.

Acridid grasshopper color polymorphisms

This is the nymph of an Acridid grasshopper, a paurometabolous insect that derives its family name from the Greek term akris, meaning locust or swarming grasshopper (which are also members of the Acrididae!). The color variation in Acridid grasshoppers is just spectacular, as is the role of coloration in this group: thermal regulation, crypsis, aposematism, sexual dimorphisms, and even as a means to promote (negative) frequency-dependent selection - wherein rare phenotypes are missed by predators that prefer common prey phenotypes.  Here's a great review paper by Bond 2007.

The foot of a common house gecko

     While it can be found throughout Mesoamerica, the common house gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus) is a actually a native of southeast Asia.  The story is that the population started from escaped pets.  Here in El Salvador, the house geckos do exceptionally well in urban areas & suburban parks (where homes & 24hr street lights are abundant) and they seldom venture deep into the few remaining large natural areas.  How a gecko's feet work is simply spectacular: β-keratin spatula-shaped bristles arranged in plate-like footpads (white above) allow attractive intermolecular van-der-Waals forces (i.e. non-covalent bonds!) to form between the footpad & a given surface.  Here's a great paper by Herrera et al. 2005.

Turkey vulture

     Here in El Salvador, Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) are generally referred to as "ave de rapiña"; which loosely translates to "raptor ".  What is really neat is that Old World vultures belong to the taxonomic order Falconiformes (where raptors/ birds of prey are also grouped).  However, New World vultures are not part of the Falconiformes & are evolutionarily unrelated to raptors.  It appears then that the term "ave de rapiña" is a remnant from Old World Spanish (Spain!) and a misnomer for a New World bird!  Here's a great paper by Gibb et al. 2007.

White-lined Sphinx moth

     My wife took this amazing picture of a White-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata) visiting the beautiful inflorescences of the Pride of Madeira (Echium candicans, syn. E. fastuosum), which have beautiful blue flowers with red stamens and are found all over Palisades Park in Santa Monica, CA.  The White-lined sphinx moth follows a bee-line foraging strategy; so the individuals we observed visiting these flowers stayed for about 15min and then left the park!  Here's a cool paper by Casey 1976.

Roya, the Coffee Fungus

The Roya fungus (Hemileia vastatrix) infects coffee leaves and the resulting leaf damage & discoloration gives it the common name of "coffee rust".  Roya hit El Salvador hard this season & it's estimated that half of the country's coffee plantations have been infected.  Climate change (wetter rainy seasons, dryer dry seasons) has exacerbated Roya across Central America.

Day of the Dead in Nahuizalco

     Got the chance to celebrate the Day of the Dead in beautiful Nahuizalco.  In the background you can see the Santa Ana Volcano (left), Cerro Verde (middle), and Izalco Volcano (right). The debri field from the collapse of the Santa Ana summit (in the late-Pleistocene) reached the Pacific Ocean (40Km away) to form the Acajutla Peninsula.  Here's a cool paper by Siebert et al. 2003.