Ημερολόγιο της/του jeffrey_simeon

Several days ago I saw a small, ruddy mammal that made me think of a Capybara while driving down a back road in Utila. The creature scampered off quickly, so no picture, but I got a good look at it. It was the same ruddy color as the road I was driving on, rabbit sized, short ears, blocky head, no visible tail. It walked sort of like a deer even though it was clearly a rodent.

Today I asked our our baby sitter about it and she says it is a "guatusa" and wikipedia reveals that a guatusa is more commonly known as a Agouti. Wikipedia also shows that there is a critically endangered endemic species of Agouti , the Ruatan Island Agouti or Dasyprocta ruatanica, known on Roatan Island several miles to the east of here.

Googling reveals this article in spanish from 2015 outlining the hunting of Agouti on Utila , but doesn't go as far as to call them the endangered species.

Unless these are a population of agouti introduced more recently, I suspect there is another population of Ruatan Island Agouti living on Utila. I hope to investigate this further and maybe get a photo of the animal to upload.

Some major developments since my last post about Agoutis on Utila.

I connected with Tom Brown at Kanahau, a wildlife conservation organization on Utila. They work to study and protect the critically endangered Baker's Spiny-Tailed Iguana. But of course they are interested in all things biodiversity on Utila.

Tom informed me that the have camera traps which frequently capture Agoutis on Utila, similar to the Honduran study I posted about last time. I went with him and Court Harding to collect the camera traps and monitor "Swampers", aka Ctenosaura bakeri.

Long story short, the camera traps have more evidence of the Agouti (or Guatusa) on Utila. I think it's likely that they are the Ruatan Island species, Dasyprocta-ruatanica, in part because they appear to have black hairs on their ears like this one from Roatán. This contrasts them with the Central American Agouti Dasyprocta punctata which have bald ears like this observation.

Nothing definitive as the camera traps are not a genetic test, but hopefully I can get some more attention on this species on this Utila. I'd be happy to find out I'm wrong if they are introduced Central American Agouti as well!

I believe Kanahau and Tom will be posting more photos of Agoutis in the near future. You can find out more about Kanahau at www.Kanahau.org.

Today I saw a bird that drove me crazy.

It was a heron, it was small, it was dark and it didn't look like anything I'd seen before!

Was it the tiniest Little Blue Heron much smaller than the others I was seeing today? But it didn't have a dark tipped beak!

Was it a Green Heron like the one skulking in the mangroves. Comparing to the Yellow-cowned Night-Heron and Willet standing nearby showed the heron was the right size, but the colors were so wrong.

I took my photos through the binoculars, which of course is less than ideal, but it was out in the open so the pics were useful.

But reviewing Merlin App didn't help. And looking at my book A Guide to the Birds of Nicaragua - Una Guía de Aves didn't help. I know, Honduras isn't Nicaragua, but still... use what you got!

Looking at Wikipedia's list of heron species started getting me somewhere... to the Galapagos? The Lava Heron looked pretty close, but lived so far away. Having a sighting of a Galapagos endemic on Utila Honduras, would be incredible, but I didn't think it was possible. Reading the article revealed that Lava Herons are a subspecies or morph of the Striated Heron and that got me thinking.

Maybe this was a melanistic green heron? Melanistic like a melanistic jaguar is called a black panther? Green Black Panther Heron? Black Green Panther Heron?

I fired up Duck Duck Go and searched for "Melanistic Green Heron" and found a 2018 article published in the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology with my answer. "New sightings of melanistic Green Herons (Butorides virescens) in the Caribbean suggest overlooked polymorphism" revealed my Black Panther Green Heron was the real deal and only described in 2017 on Utila! How cool.

So if you're on Utila, you have a good shot of seeing the Utila Black Panther Green Heron too! What a great sighting on my last full day on the island.