Jean-Louis, Agnes and the kids took us for a swim with the rays and to see the underwater Tikis (sculptures made by a local artist). When we arrived with the dinghies the rays were already circling the boats waiting for us to get in the water! They are really huge and were crawling all over us, especially because we had fresh fish for them. I scared myself out when one of the gentle animal bite my finger, hopefully they have no sharp teeth!
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What a great experience with strong mix feelings: afraid and exciting, good combination! Swimming with dozen of sharks in crystal clear water along the walls of the pass was the highlight of the Pacific trip so far. We were admiring the huge variety of beautifully colored reefs and fishes while the blacktips got closer and closer, they were only medium size which is absolutely fine with me! They really are graceful and I was laughing when I could see Geoff tacking his feet under the dinghy each time one came too close. In July the whales arrive in French Polynesia and I hope to get a chance to go underwater with them!
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To be updated soon.
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My friend Aileen took me for a walk as she saw some Sloth in one spot close to the marina. And they were there, 4 adults and a baby, hanging up side down.
Sloths are omnivores, they may eat insects, small lizards, and carrion, but their diet consists mostly of buds, tender shoots, and leaves, mainly of Cecropia trees. They have made extraordinary adaptations to an arboreal browsing lifestyle. Leaves, their main food source, provide very little energy or nutrition and do not digest easily: sloths have very large, specialized, slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves. As much as two-thirds of a well-fed sloth's body-weight consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take a month or more to complete.
Even so, leaves provide little energy, and sloths deal with this by a range of economy measures: they have very low metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a creature of their size), and maintain low body temperatures when active (30 to 34 °C or 86 to 93 °F), and still lower temperatures when resting.
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Agouti or "guatusa" known locally designates several rodent species of the genus Dasyprocta that inhabit areas of Central America, the West Indies and northern South America. They are related to guinea pigs and look quite similar, but with longer legs. They may grow to be up to 60 cm in length and 4 kg in weight. Most species have a brown back and a whitish or buffy belly; the fur may have a glossy appearance and then glimmers in an orange colour. In the wild they are shy animals and flee from humans, while in captivity they may become trusting.
When feeding, agoutis sit on their hind legs and hold food between their forepaws. They feed on fruit and other parts of plants and they are regarded as the only species that can open Brazil nuts, mainly thanks to their strength and exceptionally sharp teeth.
They are active at day and conceal themselves at night in hollow tree-trunks, or in burrows among roots. Graceful in their movements, their pace is either a kind of trot or a series of springs following one another so rapidly as to look like a gallop. They take readily to water, in which they swim well.
They can live for as long as twenty years, a remarkably long time for a rodent.
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This was really cute, the female had stole a Coca-Cola can on the beach and was chased by the whole gang but she managed to escape to the top of a tree. She gurgled her soft drink down the fastest she could while her baby was keeping an eye on the situation and then gave us a bit and loud burp!
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The Portuguese Man-of-War is a floating colony of animals that lives in warm seas. It is poisonous and is called "Man-of-War" because it looks a Portuguese battleship with a sail. The Man-of-War is eaten by many animals, including sea turtles.
A small fish (Nomeus gronovii, 8 cm long) is mostly immune to the Man-of-War's poison and lives protected (from other predators) among the tentacles. This fish eats the tentacles (which are regenerated), but sometimes the fish is eaten by the Man-of-War. By the way the toxins from tentacles are about 75 percent as powerful as cobra venom. Even dead Man-of-Wars stranded on the beach can still sting.
Diet: The Portuguese Man-of-War eats small fish and other small ocean animals that is stings with its long tentacles. The poison in the stingers paralyzes the prey, which the Man-of-War then eats. The poison cannot kill humans, but the sting can be very painful.
Anatomy: The Man-of-War floats on a gas-filled, blue to pink, translucent body called a pneumatophore (belonging to a single animal). The body is 3 to 12 inches (9-30 cm) long. The crest (only a few inches tall) above the float acts like a sail, moving the animal across the seas. Polyps support the tentacles and are located under the float; there are 3 types of polyps: dactylozooid (that find and catch prey with poisonous stingers called nematocysts), gonozooid (that reproduce), and gastrozooid (that digest the food, like a stomach). The coiled, stinging tentacles can be up to 165 feet (50 m) long.
We saw hundred of these jellyfish floating with the Gulf Stream and they were quite magical to look at.
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We saw this little guy at the hotel in the hills of the Dominican Republic with our friends on "Reve d'oceans". It was a very impressive display of Courtship!
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