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Left - my photo.  Right:  taken from:  https://gvzoo.com/animals/domestic-muscovy-duck Native to Central and South America, the Muscovy duck has been domesticated and bred across much of the world.  Wild populations differ markedly from domesticated ones, as you can see in the above image.  It's interesting that this bird can be found in its ancestral form.  What's odd is that the bird is often left out of field guides because many individuals are considered farm animals and not wild stock.  I suppose it would be like putting cows in a book on the mammals of North America. However, there are wild populations of Muscovy ducks that retain their ancestral DNA - they have never been domesticated, as the one I photographed above while visiting Guatemala this year.  It is fairly easy to differentiate between the two groups. We don't see wild Muscovy ducks in the north because they are not adapted to cold winters.  They can fly, but only for sh...

Central American agoutis - they run freely around the Guatemala Zoo. If a guinea pig and a capybara conspired to produce offspring between them, I suspect that the resulting adults would look a lot like agoutis. I first saw these good-sized rodents hurrying along near fences and other structures at the drive-through zoo we visited in Guatemala.  The zoo was interesting in itself, and I will do a blog on it eventually, but these little creatures got on my radar early.  They weren't caged, penned, or restrained in any manner.  They had the run of the place, no so different from what we see when visiting a park occupied by grey and black squirrels.  They were content to be in the open, although they liked the security of a nearby wall or fence.  They would scurry towards an animal's food and either eat it right away or carry some away to eat elsewhere. Agoutis eat fruit and nuts; their very sharp teeth can gnaw through the tough outer shell of Brazil nuts and even ...

Male brown basilisk lizard I photographed this year in Guatemala. Although basilisks are not a type of iguana, they are closely related, belonging to the same suborder (Iguanidea).  The brown basilisk is a fairly large lizard, up to two feet long, and weighing around a pound, with females being smaller than males.  Males can be identified by their prominent crest, which is clearly visible in the above image.  I have included a second image below showing a close-up of the head and crest. Brown basilisk close-up of head and crest. They tend to be found around places with both water and trees.  They are excellent climbers and swimmers, but their real claim to fame is their ability to run across the surface of water a modest distance, up to 60 feet for smaller ones, which helps them avoid predators.   Basilisks are predators, eating mostly insects and other invertebrates and small vertebrates.  They are also known to eat some plant matter.  They are f...

Brown booby flying with its head twisted sideways, looking for fish. OK, this one was weird.  We are cruising along on our ship, and I am on the Promenade with my camera and long lens, photographing the various boobies that are searching for fish.  You can't actually see what they are doing very well, even with a good telephoto; the most you can usually do when the birds are flying is to try to keep them in the viewfinder and maintain a focus lock.  It's not until you get the photos back to your computer that you can really review them well. And then I see it.  This booby, with its head rotated 90°, is flying along, looking straight down.  Not with both eyes, with one.  Now, many birds have lousy binocular vision to begin with, as their eyes are at the sides of their heads instead of in front, like owls.  And flying horizontally with your head facing down is not very aerodynamic.  So, this bird seems to have found a solution to that problem. ...

Black spiny-tailed iguana as photographed in El Salvador You'd never know it, looking at one of these lizards as it lazes about in its habitat, but it holds the Guinness Book of World Records as being the fastest lizard species on Earth.  Not only are they fast, they are also exceptionally good climbers and can crawl over rocks, branches, and up trees with relative ease.   They are large lizards, up to four feet in length, and have sharp claws and a strong tail.  If provoked, they will whip their tail towards an aggressor, claw at them, and even bite.  They are primarily vegetarians but will take invertebrates, small vertebrates, and eggs if available.   The females are slightly smaller than males and use their sharp claws to dig burrows for eggs.  She may lay up to 25 eggs and protect them from other females or potential predators.  The young are only a few inches long and dig their way out of their burrow, which may be half a meter deep....

Three narrow stingless bees approach the entrance to their hive.  El Salvador. One of the great reasons to travel is to see things, amazing things, things that are different from what you normally experience on a day-to-day basis.  And although I enjoy places, people, culture, and structures, what I get a real kick out of is wildlife.  Vertebrates, invertebrates, air, land, ocean, fresh water - it all presents an opportunity to discover life in a form I have not known. Such was my discovery of a peculiar sight - bright yellow insects buzzing around the base of a tree.  Hundreds of them.  I asked a local gentleman what they were; he called them chumelos .  A type of social bee, but unlike anything I had seen before.  I didn't have my macro equipment with me, so the best I could do was to zoom in with my telephoto from a distance and see what I got.   Later, I found out that they are a small, stingless bee that makes honey.  There was a tu...