Moruga Bouffe - The Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists' Club

Page 3 THE FIELD NATURALIST Issue No. 2/2011THE CONFLICTED NATURALISTby Christopher K. StarrUniversity of the West Indiesckstarr@gmail.comMy house, like Victor Quesnel's, is a sort ofwildlife sanctuary. Mosquitoes, non-nativecockroaches and most termites are unwelcome,but just about everybody else is at leasttolerated. Three species of geckos (and theoccasional skink) leave their, uh, leavings onthe floor, a small price to pay for the pleasureof their squeaking, scurrying company. For atime the house was home to a Cook's treeboa, whom I would encounter in unexpectedcorners. The snake was quite a bit messierthan the unamused lizards, but I was sure hewas worth it.In some years house wrens nest inside. They are certainlyprejudicial to good housekeeping, but so what?They are such delightfully lively little birds that onecan forgive them all manner of sins.A short-tailed fruit bat roosted in the bathroom forsome months. The bat sometimes brought fooditems into the house, dropping the uneaten parts onthe floor, so that I was able to see what it was eating.(I believe Victor once did a study of the feeding habitsof bats roosting in his house.) My bat dropped a greatmany pwa-bwa (Swartzia pinnata) seeds after chewingoff the sweet white ariloid. This corroborated myhypothesis that pwa-bwa seeds are bat-dispersed.Tarantulas and web-building spiders are certainly present.Every now and then I clean old, disused silkfrom the ceiling, trying not to damage or even inconveniencethe little eight-legged darlings. All arachnidsare welcome in Obronikrom.Many other beasts wander indoors for much shorterperiods. I get nocturnal maribons at the lights.Whacking big robust cockroaches fly in the windows,skedaddle about and then depart. Moths often comein, stay at rest through the day, and fly back out whennight returns.Besides these, two social wasps nest inside from timeto time, and these and several others nest on the outsideof the house, along with mud-nesting solitarywasps, carpenter ants, stingless bees and the occasionalorchid bee. Although I have never seen eitherof them inside the house, army ants raid across thepatio a couple of times a year, and bachac columnswalk along the edge every night.On 6 April I awoke to notice three unaccustomedwasps clinging to the ceiling over my head. Now, thatwas interesting, so I did exactly what you would do. Ipicked up some plastic vials, collected the wasps, andthen whipped out my hand lens. It was Agelaia multipicta.This widely-distributed maribon is far fromcommon in Trinidad. I encounter a colony on averageless than once a year, so I was happy to get specimensright at home.When I came home that evening I noticed severalmore on the ceiling and flying about the lights. Itstruck me that there must be a new colony nearby.Not exactly. It wasn't near the house but right insideit. The next morning I happened to look into thespare bathroom and met a truly striking sight. Therewas a great mass of wasps hanging in clusters on thefar wall, spread over the ceiling and especially dense inthe angle between them, where they had already begunto build combs.My immediate reaction was sharp delight. Hot damn!A real live Agelaia colony right there in my ownhouse. And then, very quickly, I had misgivings. Thisand some other Agelaia species build huge colonies --this founding swarm appeared to comprise severalthousand individuals -- and they are not docile whendisturbed. I have been stung by several species, and itis always painful. A. multipicta (and possibly mostmembers of the genus) have barbs on the stinger, sothat it remains fixed in the wound, where it keeps on(Continued on page 9)