Unfortunately, before we left for Sri Lanka we learned that Paul would only join us for the first half of the field trip. He had growing concerns about the safety and likelihood of hassle and potential arrest from wildlife officers, but he had a more important reason to shorten his stay. His mother-in-law was very ill and was living with him and his wife Sue. It would be a lot to ask of his wife to handle the extensive care and related issues on her own for almost four weeks. So he made plans to stay with us for about 10 days and then departed.
Now down to a threesome - Guy Tansley and I, plus Paul's brother Mark who isn't really a tarantula hunter - and with my target species "in the bag", I was quite happy to finish our stay in beautiful Sri Lanka in holiday mode. However, my companions have this attitude that field trips "are not holidays" and that they must always be work and we must always rough it with mediocre or worse accommodations. Additionally, my two companions were running low on funds and my free-spending nature would cause some strain. I did want to visit at least one of Sri Lanka's famed natural parks to see an elephant in the wild and perhaps get a chance to see a leopard. We succeeded in this on a guided trip in Yala National Park, which has various blocks known by other names such as Ruhuna and Kumana. This park is the most visited and the second largest national park and is the best opportunity to catch a glimpse of an elusive leopard. Because of the thick woods seeing elephants there is more difficult, and the best place for elephants is Udawalawe, which is much more open and allows easier viewing of these immense mammals.
I'll post some pix from Yala at the end of this blog entry, but first I want to talk about our fourth and final Sri Lankan tarantula species. After Paul was gone we were determined to find one without him and we really wanted to find a burrowing species. Yala is located on the far southeastern coast of Sri Lanka and is nearby the best places to find Poecilotheria vittata. I had been given a location by a friend to search for this spider, but we were unable to find the exact area and we knew that we would be looking in small trees in an area with many people present and we would be at great risk of attracting unwanted attention. We decided to give up on P. vittata and instead visit an area where my friend Thorsten Kroes had told me of two new species of Chilobrachys that have yet to be described. He sent me photos of both and one was a beautiful specimen with blue legs much like the Vietnamese forms. The other was a blackish species, which according to his info would be found an hour south of the blue form. Of course, we decided to try for the more colorful one.
Unfortunately, when we arrived at the locality provided we could not find the exact area. We were told that it was on the grounds of the temple and we ended up at another temple and forest reserve only about 15 miles to the east after finding some very odd lodging. It would take me a blog in itself to describe where we stayed, but the accommodations were nice. We had a house at the top of the mountain all to ourself. There were two bedrooms so I took my own and Guy and Paul shared the one with two beds. The road from the lodge and most of the other cabins was impossibly steep and rose significantly to the plateau where our own little house was. We were sort of treated like dignitaries as we seemed to be the first "white people" to ever stay at what was, for Sri Lanka, an upscale resort. It seemed to be a getaway place for the more well-off Sri Lankans and up on our plateau they were building a hotel that would have the biggest swimming pool in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, the crew worked mostly at night and sleeping was a bit tough with their generators and machinery making noise.
But back to the hunt for Chilobrachys ... the manager of our "lodge" had suggested a forest reserve and, although we found other interesting creatures there, we struck out with tarantulas. So the next day we returned to the temple a half hour east and sought permission to search the grounds. We sell ourselves as just tourists wanting to look for birds and monkeys in the forest. These are sacred temples and permission from the "head monk" is required. This requires an intermediary and fortunately we had a driver that acted as translator. Most have steep stairs that lead up the hillside to Buddhas and praying areas. By this point of the trip Mark had had it with leeches and hiking and tended to just hang out with our driver. So Guy and I walked through the eerie Buddhist monastery grounds and into the woods searching trees and looking for burrows. There were plenty of beautiful birds and the ubiquitous toque macaques, but no spiders of note. Around the world roadside embankments make for great tarantula hunting and eventually we descended the road with our eyes scouring the mossy embankment. We found burrows with frogs and giant amblypigids and then found tarantula burrows. We expected the spiders we tickled out to be the blue-legged variety, but it seemed that this area so close to the locality Thorsten had given me for that colorful new Chilobrachys only held the black undescribed form. Still, we were happy to finally find a terrestrial and to find another species without Paul. After that I, at least, was in full on holiday mode. :)
The rest of the tale will be with photos ...
All images © Michael Jacobi except where noted as © Guy Tansley.
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| Guy at the trailhead leading to the Buddhist Temple |
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| The road that led to the trailhead. Chilobrachys habitat. |
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| Guy and Mark search the roadside embankment. Guy is dressed for the jungle hunting he and I did. Mark is dressed for hanging back by our van. Once we started searching the embankments along the road where leeches were few he joined us. |
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| A large amblypid found in a hole in the roadside embankment. |
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| Adenomus kelaartii, a toad we found in embankment holes. |
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| Classic embankment burrow holding Chilobrachys sp. |
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| "Chilobrachys sp." |
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| This gorgeous golden salticid was also found along the road where we hunted Chilobrachys. |
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| Hello to you too! |
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| This eight inch thick as my forefinger millipede was also found along the embankments. We found three different varieties of this giant millipede throughout southern Sri Lanka. We called this the white-leg. There was also one with grayish white legs with a dark band and one with orangish legs. |
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| This toque macaque was curious what the three "pale skins" were doing! |
Moving on to a few photos from Yala National Park ...
Yala is one of those places where you hire a safari jeep and they four wheel it at high speed around the park chasing possible leopard sightings. This isn't an activity I enjoyed or recommend. All they care about is getting you to see one so you'll get a tip. There are reports of these jeeps hitting wildlife, including leopards! We were not too happy with the experience, but we did manage to see a leopard in a tree off in the distance. Binoculars were necessary to see the lounging cat and Guy's little point and shoot proved to have an amazing optical zoom and he was able to capture the below photo.
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| Sri Lankan leopard at Yala National Park. © Guy Tansley |
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| Here is my crop and retouch of Guy's image. It was far in the distance, but it was a thrill to see what is among my favorite animals for the first time. © Guy Tansley |
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| If your only experience with peafowl is at zoos and such you probably thought they lived on the ground. There are loads of peafowl at Yala that reminded us that they do fly and perch. |
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| However, they also spend time on the ground. Peacock in full display. |
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| Yala is also home to grey langurs. |
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| A sambar deer buck. These deer are what leopards eat along with langurs and other mammals. © Guy Tansley |
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| Feral dogs scavenge on a sambar deer corpse. © Guy Tansley |
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| The southern border of Yala is the ocean. This rock is called Patanagala. |
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| Water buffalo living up to its name. © Guy Tansley |
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| Crested (or changeable) hawk-eagle, Nisaetus cirrhatus. © Michael Jacobi |
We did see an elephant at Yala but, as advertised, it was in thick cover and you could barely make it out even though it was 20 yards or less away. I won't post one of those poor images here. The next morning we drove back west and passed Udawalawe where the elephant viewing is supposed to be excellent and were surprised that the highway went right past the reservoir and there was an elephant that had wandered right along the fence line along the road. The Yala elephant was my first wild elephant, but this adventurous Udawalawe elephant was kind enough to venture to the road so I could see my first wild elephant up close and get good photos. I would have loved to do a safari there, but the funds were low for some and this elephant made it unnecessary! Until next time ... MJ
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| Lucky day alongside the Udawalawe reservoir. Guy and Mark photograph an elephant who had come to where someone had been dumping produce. Note the electric fence to keep them in the national park and off the road. |
Closing advert: I have unloaded many prize spiders and the list of what is available is getting smaller and smaller. However, I invite you to check out what's left on my the updated list and see if anything interests you. Sorry, USA sales only. FedEx Priority Overnight shipped "HOLD FOR PICKUP" at your nearest FedEx Ship Center only.
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