It has been a long while since the last update to this blog, mostly because of my hectic travel schedule (in fact, I am typing this on a shaky train ride). But it has been an interesting time, with lots of great photo ops. Last week I joined Alex Wild, John Abbott and Thomas Shahan in Belize to teach BugShot 2013, an intense course in tropical insect macrophotography. Aside from working with a friendly group of photography masters and enthusiastic students it was my first exposure to some of the most interesting members of the troglobitic Mesoamerican fauna as the workshop was held at the Caves Branch Lodge in central Belize, an area famous for its karst formations, replete with deep limestone caves.

The most famous cave in the area is the Footprint Cave, named after calcified Mayan footprints found in the deeper section of the cave, along with a number of artifacts and skeletal remains. The cave was looted in 1994, and many artifacts and remains are now gone, but you can still see there ancient fire places and shards of Mayan pottery. It was quite an unreal and humbling experience to sit next to a pile of ash that might be over 2,000 years old but still looks warm. The cave itself is stunningly beautiful, cathedral-like, with massive stalactites that shimmer in the light of the headlamp. The shallow Caves Branch River flows through it, and as you walk along its bed large catfish and shrimp follow your every step, looking for small aquatic invertebrates flushed from under the sand.

As we walked deeper into the cave, leaving behind its large opening and eventually all traces of natural light, we began to discover a multitude of life forms that call this cave their home. Biologists explored Footprint Cave in early 1970’s, but little work has been done since. Many animal species found in the Caves Branch system are likely endemic, and some still await their formal scientific description. I was thrilled to see dozens of long-legged cave crickets Mayagryllus apterus, described only in 1993 from specimens collected in these caves. They were often accompanied by large, equally spindly amblypygids Paraphrynus raptator (Phrynidae), and apparently another, yet undescribed species of the family Charontidae is also present in the cave (and Gil Wizen might have found a third, possibly new amblypygid species). I was hoping to find some dinospiders (Ricinulei) there, alas, no such luck, but flipping rocks on the banks of Caves Branch River revealed a tiny, equally interesting arachnid, a pygmy vinegaroon (Schizomida). The species found in the Footprint Caves is a yet undescribed species of Schizomus, and I would love to be able to collect some specimens and describe them (I need to look into getting some permits for Belize).

Yet the most interesting organism in the cave was a fly. When we shone the light at the low celling of the cave we could see curtains of thin, glistening strands of sticky silk produced by larvae of predaceous fungus gnats of the family Keroplatidae; I have not been able to identify the species that lives in the Footprint Cave, but it is possibly a member of the genus Macrocera (Macrocerinae). The strands spun by the larvae are covered with droplets of oxalic acid, which trap and kill tiny flying insects, mayflies mostly, found in the cave. Members of a related subfamily Arachnocampinae found in Australia and New Zealand are famous for their bioluminescence, but the ones found in Belize are of the non-glowing variety. Still, it was a beautiful spectacle to see thousands of hair-like strands undulate gently in the breeze caused by a person walking several meters away.

Everybody was sad to leave the cave, which turned out to be the highlight of our photographic workshop, although the fauna of the rainforest that surrounded the lodge where we stayed was equally interesting. Not being able to collect anything was torture for me, but I hope that some day soon I will be able to come back to Caves Branch, this time wearing only my entomologist’s hat.