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This is the last of 3 unusual flag-footed bugs I found in the Cahuita National Park, a strip of beach fronted forest. I saw only this one, just before sunset, and when I returned the next morning to get some more photos, it was nowhere to be seen, though I looked on the same plant. I wonder if this is the same, or a different species. It was smaller and had flags on all 6 legs.
Beach-fronted National Park and Marine reserve. Tropical and very humid. This site has 1067.9 hectares in land area, 600 ha in coral reef and 22,400 hectares of marine area, home to one of the best-developed coral reefs in the Caribbean and more importantly coast of Costa Rica. It also protects a sample of swampy forest with pure stands of raffia (Arecaceae) and Sangrillo (Fabaceae), as well as a great diversity of epiphytes and very humid forest remnants, typical of this area of life and white sandy beaches of great scenic beauty.
8 Comments
and thank you tmvdh... Your diligence in checking through my spottings for interesting bugs is highly commended and appreciated by me.
Wow, Pam, how cool that you photographed a new and undescribed species! Kudos to tmvdh for their published scientific paper about it! Betty
Definitely a new and undescribed species!
I wrote a scientific paper about it which has been published recently.
Thanks again, Pam!
so the question is... is this a baby of these?
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/164...
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/163...
yes, the shadow is almost as cute as the bug !
Thank you, I love how the one image shows it's shadow. Exciting to find something you cannot identify - I hope someone ID's it for you!
No coopboop, didn't see it eating. It was about 1/2 inch in size and I only saw them in the Cahuita National Park on the caribbean seaside.
Very cool looking, was it eating and approximately how big was he? I will be traveling to Costa Rica for the first time later this year, I will look for this type of bugs (and others). Thanks for sharing!