Cueva del Tigre is a place in Livingston that you must visit if you like adventure, explore caves, take a dip and of course learn more about flora and fauna. To get to this place you can do it from Río Tatin or ask a vehicle to take you from La Buga to Plan Grande Tatin. We took the route from La Buga, Plan Grande Tatin, hike to Cueva del Tigre and returned to Río Tatin where a boat was waiting for us.
During the pathway you can see different species such as Heliconia spp, Costus spp, Carica wild papaya, Attalea cohune (Corozo), Cecropia peltata (Guarumo) and what surprised us the most was to find Jacaratia dolichaula commonly called jungle “bonete”, mountain papaya or kumche in Q'eqchi language. As mentioned before it is commonly called mountain papaya, since it is a wild relative of papaya and belongs to the same family (CARICACEAE)
This species is within the FLAAR must to find, since several research indicate that it is possibly an edible species. In the future we hope to find more related species of papaya to document and promote their conservation, species such as:
| Specie | Common name | Family |
|---|
| Jacaratia mexicana | Bonete | CARICACEAE |
| Vasconcellea cauliflora | Papaya cimarrona | CARICACEAE |
| Vasconcellea pubescens | Papayuela | CARICACEAE |
Posted August 11, 2021
Written by Vivian Hurtado & Roxana Leal
Identified Species by Victor Mendoza
