# Bocas del Toro, Panama (picture heavy)



## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

My family took a trip to Bocas del Toro, Panama, and I got to see some awesome pumilio. We stayed on Red Frog Beach, Bastimentos, but I also got to see the Bastimentos "cemetery" population, Popa "north", Popa "south" and Loma Partida pumilio. It was amazing to see them, but it did seem kind of strange finding hundreds of $125 frogs hopping around all over the ground! I want to say thanks to JP on here, without his help I would not have been able to see some of these neat populations. Also thanks to some other members here I contacted asking about their experiences when they had gone down. 

Bastimentos "red frog beach"










Female with tads





































































































Bastimentos "cemetery"- the variability in this population (both colors and spots/ patterns) was incredible. I only saw a relatively small group of frogs- maybe 25 to 30- and none looked the same. Breed these and see what kinds of cool new patterns will naturally pop up!













































































































Cool lizard (anole species?)


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

Popa "North"- the forest was dark here, so I had to use the flash a lot and that's why the eyes have glare spots in some photos





















































































Popa "South"- one of the prettiest pumilio morphs I saw




































































































Fighting males- these guys were really going at it!










































































Loma Partida- Didn't take too many photos since it was kind of hard to see the frogs, and I was getting bitten by ants so I didn't want to stick around too long. Very nice frogs though, in good lighting they look great




























Thanks,
Bryan


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Nice shots,you must have had a great time!


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## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

"picture heavy" you say? I guess I'll just have to click on this thread.

No regrets.


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

Thanks for sharing!


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## zzpop102 (Apr 24, 2010)

Wow, the Popa "South" are incredible. Thank you so much for sharing!


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## whitethumb (Feb 5, 2011)

exactly what i was thinking! popa south looks awesome


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## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

Enjoyed the pics! Thanks! 

I know little about the island...Is the Popa south topographically separate form the north? Did only the southern pop have yellow bellies. Also curious where Wilson's creek is....is it north or south/


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

I agree with you Popa south are stunning and I love Bastis. Thanks for sharing


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## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Ummm, do pumilio not give a s**t that there is a giant bipedal predator flashing them?! It sure looks like they don't in your pics. Thanks for sharing, the pics are great.

Edit: erm, flashing them with a camera...


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## MonarchzMan (Oct 23, 2006)

oldlady25715 said:


> Enjoyed the pics! Thanks!
> 
> I know little about the island...Is the Popa south topographically separate form the north? Did only the southern pop have yellow bellies. Also curious where Wilson's creek is....is it north or south/


I'm not sure where Wilson Creek is in relation to my sampling sites, but if I had to guess, I believe it's on the northern end of Popa.

As far as topology, I think that Popa is fairly continuous from north to south, but there is a constriction in the middle of the island that I wonder might had had some isolating effect in the past. The differences are quite striking between the two parts of the island. I took samples so I should be able to get some idea of gene flow between the extremes of the island.

I want to thank Bryan for his help, too! I got two days of sampling done in one with his help. It kept me up until midnight that night processing frogs, but there was lots of science done! He didn't even mention the deluge we got caught in on the way back which caused us to take refuge in the mangroves for a while....


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

Great pics, thanks for sharing. Quick question. All the popas, north or south, you photographed were more or less green. Did you find any orange/bronze individuals?


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

Nice shots! Thanks for posting them.


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## chadnc (Apr 10, 2013)

So cool, thx for sharing your pics.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2


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## Baltimore Bryan (Sep 6, 2006)

oldlady25715 said:


> Enjoyed the pics! Thanks!
> 
> I know little about the island...Is the Popa south topographically separate form the north? Did only the southern pop have yellow bellies. Also curious where Wilson's creek is....is it north or south/


Good question, honestly I don't know. We didn't hike from one end of the other so I couldn't tell you if it was a continuous population, but the differences between the two ends (size, belly color, spotting, etc.) was pretty striking. 
Not exactly sure where Wilson Creek is, but those pumilio look more like the Popa "north" I saw, so I would guess it's on the northern part of the island. 
Hopefully JP's analysis will give more insight!



epiphytes etc. said:


> Great pics, thanks for sharing. Quick question. All the popas, north or south, you photographed were more or less green. Did you find any orange/bronze individuals?


Yes, at Popa "north" I saw some bronze colored individuals. You can see in some of the pictures that the green is more of a yellow/green color for some frogs. I didn't see any actual orange ones, although they were pretty hard to find since they blended in with the leaf litter so I could have easily missed some. I saw one individual (unfortunately it was before I had the camera out so I didn't photograph it) that really was a yellow/ bronze color with blue-green legs. It reminded me a lot of the "golden popas" that SNDF sold a couple of years ago. I can't say for certain of course if this is where those orange popas came from, but they definitely seemed to be closer to Popa "north" than "south."
Some of the spotless Popa "south" looked a lot like cayo de agua, but I didn't see any that looked orange or bronze there.

We did get caught in quite the downpour on the way back, but it was totally worth it! We got soaked, but all that matters is that the camera (and the SD card with all the frog photos) stayed dry.

Thanks for all the good feedback.
Bryan


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## RichardA (Jul 15, 2009)

Wow....soooo cool!

Thanks for sharing with us. Looks like an awesome trip! I am looking into a photographic trip to Peru


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