#40 - TALES FROM THE FIELD #6

My last installment in the ongoing Tales from the Field series detailed day one of our search for Poecilotheria ornata in the lowland rainforest outside of Kitulgala, Sri Lanka. Despite a bit of a delay finding the foot bridge across the Kelani river and then finding the correct path into the Makandawa Reserve, we had been successful and located a beautiful young adult specimen. However, she only had seven legs. We were unable to find any additional specimens and the late afternoon rains eventually sent us back to our hotel for an early dinner and beer. As we hiked back towards the bridge the rain steadily increased and we were quite soaked when we made it back to our waiting driver Aruna. We had hired a driver with a large mini van for the entire trip and he would drop us where we wanted and return at a prearranged time. He was waiting and whisked us back to our accommodations outside of Kitulgala.

Our driver Aruna at the start of the bridge across Kelani Ganga with Mark Carpenter behind him

We were very fortunate to find our seven-legged P. ornata and were determined to return the following day and hunt for more. However, day two would have our team become a threesome. As I mentioned in earlier TFTF posts, Mark Carpenter is not a spider hunter, but rather enjoys world travel and spending time with his brother Paul. He began to tire of one aspect of the Sri Lankan jungles - the leech. Leeches are common in Asian rainforests and they were abundant in Sri Lanka. As our trip progressed he became increasingly bothered by them. Unlike tiger leeches commonly encountered in places like Borneo, the Sri Lankan leeches did not have a painful bite. They don't transmit disease and really are more of a nuisance than a threat. I became accustomed to having my clothes become bloody and it seemed like the leeches were quite fond of my fat American blood. In fact, at one point Guy Tansley had a bit of a competition to see whose leech would become more engorged. In other words, would a leech become fatter on the large American or on the slight Geordie. I won. After about 70 minutes a leech I allowed to remain attached to my wrist and become as big around as my little finger and finally dropped off. Once they are completely full of blood they drop off and, at least as far as I was concerned, no harm, no foul. The only after effects were bloody clothing as they have an anticoagulant and the wound doesn't clot readily. The following photos show they way my socks would look at the end of the day and a very fat leech dining on me.

Well, Mark had had enough of these blood suckers. On day two of our P. ornata hunt he decided to linger back with our driver and take it easy. The lowland rainforest at Makandawa was particularly wet and leech-infested and the previous afternoon and evening's rains would only make it worse. Paul, Guy and I, being spider-crazed jungle trekkers, weren't bothered at all. We only had P. ornata on our mind. Spoiler alert ... we would have a very successful day two as a trio, and the photo below shows three tired and sweaty and leech-sucked spider hunters that couldn't have been happier!

Michael Jacobi, Guy Tansley & Paul Carpenter in the lowland rainforest of Makandawa

We hiked the few miles into the rain forest toward the spot where we found the seven-legged spider the day before. Kangaroo lizards continued to scurry and hop throughout the undergrowth. The jungle was wet and humid and we paused at a few stream crossings to look for frogs and snakes.

Through Paul's "Life in the Rainforest" and Guy's "Bugsnstuff"my mates put on education programs for children and many images were captured for their upcoming presentations.

Guy Tansley in one of the many streams along our path to Poecilotheria ornata.

We marched on to one wide stream that had giant boulders spanning its width. I went out upon the rocks to take some photographs. Before long I heard the guys call out that a spider had been found. We gathered at the tree hole and shined our flashlights on a beautiful Poecilotheria ornata. It wouldn't be easy to tickle this one out so we decided to fan out and search the surrounding trees for more. In one tree Guy had located a subadult perhaps four inches in leg span. It was "tickled" out of its hole and photographed.

We were noticing that none of these retreats looked permanent. They weren't shrouded by any silk and we discussed whether the spiders were moving about the area and simply taking up a suitable retreat during the daytime before moving again at night to wherever they would ambush their prey.

As we continued to shine our "torches" into each crevice and hole we would find other critters, especially amblypygids or "whip spiders".

I can tell you that any leeches that were sucking our blood went unnoticed. Despite wearing gaiters and being covered in Deet, the leeches were unavoidable and it wouldn't be until we pulled off our dank and sweat-soaked clothing later that we would notice blood stains. We were in P. ornata country and it was proving to me an amazing day. It would only become even more so when Paul found a tree trunk with a deep slot and discovered that there were two spiders inside. I ran over and used my height to get a better look. There were indeed two Poecilotheria ornata in the slotted trunk and one was a mature male.

Tree slot that contained an adult pair of P. ornata with images cropped side by side

Picture three grown men jumping up and down in a soggy jungle. High fives. Stinky, sweaty embraces.

We had now located four more P. ornata to go with the one from the previous day. This day's spiders were all found in the same area beside a wide stream with huge boulders. I cannot sufficiently describe to you how difficult it is to find Poecilotheria in nature. Finding five in two days is hard work well done. So many trees, so many holes. The proverbial needle in a haystack. All the while working in sweltering humidity among biting insects and sucking leeches.

We managed to get the pair out of the hole for a hard earned photo session. I'll let the pictures and their captions speak for themselves.

Adult female Poecilotheria ornata, Makandawa rainforest near Kitulgala, Sri Lanka © Michael Jacobi

Adult female Poecilotheria ornata, Makandawa rainforest near Kitulgala, Sri Lanka © Michael Jacobi

Female and HUGE adult male posed on the ground near the stream.
We tried unsuccessfully to get the pair side by side on the tree trunk.
The male had a hard time gripping the slimy, mossy surface of the trees.
He was almost ten inches in legspan.
Poecilotheria ornata, Makandawa rainforest near Kitulgala, Sri Lanka © Michael Jacobi

Adult male Poecilotheria ornata, Makandawa rainforest near Kitulgala, Sri Lanka © Michael Jacobi

Needless to say, quite a few celebratory Lion lagers were consumed after a long hot shower back at our hotel. The hardest thing was going back to the van where Aruna and Mark were waiting and trying to tell Mark about our great success without giving away too much to Aruna. As I mentioned before, Sri Lanka wildlife officials are on the lookout for spider, insect and reptile hunters. Although all we were taking were photographs, we did not want anyone to even know that. We had told Aruna the truth, albeit only the partial truth. Paul and Guy teach children about the rainforest and I am a photographer and author. Both of these are true, but we didn't say what we were specifically looking for to be on the safe side. I had been warned by one person who has hunted Poecilotheria in Sri Lanka that his driver had extorted money from him at the airport in order to keep his silence about what he had been searching for. All they would have found on us would be photographs, and we made sure we photographed putting every spider back into its tree hole. Of course, we wanted these film clips for ourselves, but they would also be handy in case we were accused of collecting. Still, even disturbing the spiders by "tickling" them out of their retreats could be considered a wildlife violation. We worked very secretively in Sri Lanka, which was odd after the way we had worked in other countries. I remember Andrew running around Costa Rica with a big rubber spider to try to communicate with farmers or other people we found in the rural areas we searched. We always solicited the help of the locals in our travels. But, in Sri Lanka, we were looking over our shoulders and when anyone saw us I would point my camera to the sky and just photograph a bird or a tree. We did our best to look like regular tourists, and since I had been told that Sri Lanka frowns upon tattoos as they are thought to only be worn by criminals, I was covered up and nobody ever saw the ornamental tarantulas tattooed on my legs.

Until our next journey into the field ... MJ