Canon EOS 6D, 300mm, f/7.1, 1/1400, ISO 500, 11:56am, Feb. 11 2018, Bocas de Polochic River, Melanny Quiñonez, FLAAR.
More Ceiba pentandra trees are visible along the Rio Polochic from Lake Izabal towards Panzos than almost anywhere else in the country. I personally experienced more ceiba trees this one day (Feb. 11th_2018) than in my previous 54 years of being in front of Ceiba trees throughout Mesoamerica.
More than 25% were flowering. Ceiba pentandra trees are very individual and independent of whether they will flower any given year. And you can have several ceiba trees together in the same field and some will be in flower yet others will have full leaf growth (which means no flowering whatsoever that month or perhaps that year).
I was also very surprised to note that many of these Ceiba pentandra trees were growing in seasonal swamp areas. A few were physically adjacent to the Rio Polochic (as I would expect their relatives, Pachira aquatica). Although there are lots of Pachira aquatica trees around Lake Izabal, I did not notice one single zapoton along the Rio Polochic (whose water is the source of Lake Izabal!).
I took over 400 photographs: 60mm Sigma lens, 100mm Zeiss lens, 200mm using a Nikon D810; 400mm, and 600mm Nikkor prime telephoto lenses with a Nikon D5 on a Wimberley WH-200 gimbal tripod head II on a 20+ year old awesome quality Gitzo tripod.
FLAAR Reports has two divisions; you are now on one of the web sites of the tropical Mesoamerica flora and fauna team. If you are interested in wide-format inkjet printers, we have an entire network to explain this technology: www.wide-format-printers.org
There is also a growing team of illustrators and graphic designers who do educational children’s books (to show the world the remarkable plants and animals of 2000 years of Mayan civilization in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador).
This is how a plant gets ready to disperse its seeds: in this species, windblown, using silk-like fluff to float in the wind.
This is Asclepias curassavica, a tropical milkweed plant of Mexico, Guatemala and other Neotropical countries, which I call the monarch butterfly flower. We raise this in the FLAAR Mayan Ethnobotanical Garden in Guatemala.
Every several months we at FLAAR Mesoamerica, cooperating with FLAAR (in USA), start new research themes. This week Elena suggested seed dispersal by birds and mammals. So I will add a co-project: seed dispersal techniques of plants themselves.
Here in Guatemala the giant Ceiba pentandra trees have silk-like kapok fluff to act as a floating parachute. So the seeds blow in the wind several to many meters away from the parent tree.
We will first identify all trees and bushes and plants of Guatemala which use fluff-like material to facilitate the wind blowing the seeds as far as possible. One of the obvious plants is the “monarch butterfly flower” seed: Asclepias species. We grow these in our Mayan Ethnobotanical Research Garden precisely to attract monarch butterflies.
Already five years ago we studied explosive seed dispersal in depth.
We have a video showing these pods exploding to disperse their seeds.
So season by season we will gradually add new seed dispersal themes to our research. We specialize in high-definition, well illuminated digital photography. The picture shown here is with a Nikon D810 because our Nikon D5 is mainly useful when we need super high ISO or burst-shutter setting. Erick Flores did 5X close-ups of the Asclepias seeds which we will be glad to publish as soon as outside funding comes our way.
To learn about digital camera equipment and increase your knowledge from our digital photography experience, visit www.digital-photography.org.
Senaida Ba, from the mountains between Senahu and Cahabon, was recommended to us at FLAAR by Ing. Mauro Garcia. So Senaida started as a student intern and learned quickly to do photography, to do illustrated FLAAR, and in general documented that she was a good learner.
She applied for, and today was told that she was awarded, a full scholarship to the Universidad Rafael Landívar, Campus SAN PEDRO CLAVER, S.J. DE LA VERAPAZ.
The scholarship for 6 years will result in a capable and well-trained and experienced individual in plants, forestry, and related aspects. The technical name of the program is Ambiental y Agropecuaria.
We look forward to other student interns at FLAAR to apply for comparable scholarships, and to move forward in their lives to long-lasting and well deserved careers.
Congratuations Senaida.
Senaida Ba attended three printer expos in Europe last year. Here she is at Sign Istanbul in Turkey.
Here is the free FLAAR Report on the last year’s Guadalajara FIL 2016.
The Guadalajara International Book Fair is one of the best in the world, comparable with Frankfurt Book Fair.
Last year Dr Nicholas and graphic designer Lucia Brolo (FLAAR and MayanToons) visited FIL 2016. It was such a great event we are considering to send three to FIL 2017 (Dr Nicholas, Senaida Ba and another of our team of graphic designers for children’s books, www.MayanToons.org).
If you want to see books from publishers in Mexico, Central America, South America, USA, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Korea (and lots more countries) be sure to book a flight to Guadalajara for FIL 2017.
Drawing is by two of our team: university graphic design student Mellany and student intern Maria Josefina, copyright 2016 FLAAR.
The ancient Maya of southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala had a turkey species totally different than the North American turkey: the turkey of Guatemala is the ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata).
We show here two felines getting ready to have their yummy turkey feast (there are five species of felines in Guatemala: jaguar, puma, jaguarundi, ocelot, and margay).
We hope you enjoy our thanksgiving day bird feast humor. Don’t worry, we do not eat wild ocellated turkeys; they are protected species.
