Níspero

Number of Ticks Removed To Date: 17
Days Since Tick Removal: 0

After taking the weekend off, I needed one more day of data with the South Group this month. Yesterday I scoured every inch of that forest but couldn’t find them anywhere. I thought for sure they must have gone away somewhere to some seasonal patch of food, like how when the North Group took the secret corridor down to the road for Chaperno flowers. After all my fruitless searching, it seemed like I wouldn’t find them again until they were good and ready to come back from wherever they had gone.

This morning I headed back out, not expecting to have any luck. Since they hadn’t appeared to be anywhere in the forest near sunset last night, it was doubtful they would be back at dawn this morning. But miraculously, they were right there at point U-14, in a big tree they like to sleep in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Uno was there, so it was undeniable. As I stayed with them throughout the day, I realized why I hadn’t found them yesterday. They went up the mountain into areas where I’d never seen them before. In some places, there were remnants of really old trails, and in other areas there were no trails at all. What they were after was the juicy, ripe fruit of the Nispero (Manilkara ) tree. They visited 3 different giant Níspero trees throughout the day and stuffed their little faces with the fruit. Seriously, they got the stringy fruit all over their faces, but they didn’t do anything about it, so they just sat there all day with food-faces. Actually, it was pretty hilarious. The best part was that by the end of the day, they went full circle and headed back to the U trail, where I’m sure they were planning on sleeping in their favorite tree.

So the South Group is becoming more interesting than ever. Before, I thought that other groups of monkeys up the volcano kept the South Group pretty much trapped to the lower elevations of the former coffee plantation—where the trees are all shrubby and in the early stages of regeneration. I also thought that the South Group’s apparent restriction to this territory would result in their having a poor quality diet with very little diversity. But today the South Group demonstrated that when the time is right, they can make a jaunt up to where the trees are tall and the fruit is ripe for the picking. I’ll be interested to see how this all turns out. Until later then!