Paria Springs Trinidad and Tobago Adventures

Serious Monkey Business

Greta, Dave and I hit Bush Bush in Nariva early this morning to look at monkeys, it started with far too many blasted seriously oversized blood sucking mosquifoots and no monkeys.  After a couple hours we heard a White-fronted Capuchin Monkey (Cebus albifrons), after a 5 minute search we found a beautiful male feeding on the fruit of what seemed to be the Cannonball Tree (Couroupita guianensis) of which I know of no record of any monkey eating that fruit, which can smell foul.  The monkey was very happy and ate without a care, something which will soon be shattered.

After looking we walked off, but had gone only a short distance when several capuchins started screaming as sounds of a serious battle raged, we turned in time to see two monkeys racing after what seemed to be our original monkey.  We jogged after them to get a better look and came upon the three posturing, squeaking and glaring teeth at each other.  Soon two moved near together and were intent on chasing the third.  Of the two, one had a very bloodied ear and was the less aggressive as it was noticeably apprehensive.  I moved a bit to see the third and found it had received wounds also.  Its mouth had blood, which may have come from injury or licking its wounds on its leg which left it limping, close scrutiny showed that its injuries were serious as it had lost a finger.  We studied them for about 10 minutes and they completely ignored us as they were definitely scared to take eyes off each other. 

They moved slowly away in a chess game with serious consequences.  As they disapeared from us were heard more screaming, but that soon died down.

If you look at this photo in the middle is the capuchin whose ear had been bloodied.

The leaf has a blood trail left on it where the monkey who lost a finger had stood.

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Ever seen a frog croak?

Today while kayaking the mouth of the Marianne River with a wonderful couple; Greta and Dave from Washington state, we heard a strange grunting sound.  We investgated and saw splashing near the bank of the river, I got excited thinking it may be a river otter, which is extremely rare, but what I got was my third installment in timeless battle between predator and prey. 

In 1998 I hiked around a corner not more than 100 yards from today's battle to see a Machete (a green and yellow snake) hunting a tree frog, both are disturbed by my appearence and the snake uses the moment to strike the frog dead in the face and the frog croaks, litterally and figuratively as the snake dragged its prey into the bush to dine.  A couple years later I am mountain biking in Chaguaramas to hear this strange call on the side of Tucker Valley road and I see these exact two characters in their deadly struggle.  This time as I investigate the snake drops its prey frightened by my appearence, I am kind of scary looking ;-) 

This time the snake has obviously caught the frog while it was in the river near the bank.  Prey calls repeatedly in a death cry puffing itself up to make it too large to eat as predator drags it into branches.  The predator's grip is strong, in the photo you can see its teeth sunk into the frog's skin but the frog will not give up.  I enter the frey for a desire of modern man; to get the photo.  The predator hesitates for a moment and the frog cheats death in a splash, the snake beats a digusted retreat.  Snake 1 - Frog 2.

Why I have been priviledged to see the epic battle three times I have no clue.  I am both elated that I got the shot but disgsted that I interfered.  I would love to see this truggle continue.