Orchids and Spiders - Costa Rica

When we still lived in Cloverdale, British Columbia, Canada - I had a small orchid collection. When we decided to move to Costa Rica, the collection went to a new home.

It was very easy to start a new collection here because Costa Rica is home to about 1,400 orchid species, 20% of which are endemic (they live nowhere else on this planet). In fact, the national flower of Costa Rica is the orchid guaria morada (Cattleya skinneri). I have several of these.

Some of my orchids were purchased at orchid shows, others I confiscated from friends who were having trouble looking after them. They never saw them again of course. So now my collection numbers twenty-six orchids. They are not all different species and some I have not been able to identify. I have three vandas with different coloured blooms.

Our current house came with some orchids and I’ve been able to take some divisions for my own collection. It’s so easy keeping these gorgeous plants in a tropical climate - they live outdoors all year around.

Most of my orchids are hanging from the atrium outside our bedroom. Some I keep closer - the ones that need a bit of TLC - so I can keep an eye on them. I walked around the other day and took photos of my colección de orquídeas. Nothing is blooming at the moment.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

The other day, Lance spied a spider that we have never seen before. I took a photo and my friend Claudia, who is (amongst many other things) a protozoologist and she identified it for me. Behold, here is the spiny-backed orb weaver, or Gasteracantha cancriformis, Araneidae:

Although you cannot see it here, it also has an iridescent sheen to it. 

Spiders - A Funny Story

Many years ago, Lance and myself were guests at a cottage in the province of Quebec, Canada. The cottage was on a lake, it had a sauna, a huge stone fireplace, a boathouse and was very, very nice.

We had our own bedroom and one night as we were settling down to sleep, I told Lance there were spiders in the room. He said, "Don't worry, I will always protect you from spiders". Okay, that was fine with me. I never forgot that he said those words and he never forgot either.

Now that we live in the tropics, his spider protection duties have evolved into including cockroaches, scorpions, tarantulas, millipedes, centipedes and ants. We practice catch and release, except for the ants .... the leaf cutter ants can decimate a bush in no time flat. We use pellets and sprays for them. When ants get into our house - and they will in the tropics, all the time - we have to use sprays.

Today I did a laundry and, as usual, hung everything on the line to dry in the tropical sun and trade winds. At this time of year (the dry season), laundry dries fast. Brought the laundry inside and was making up our bed .... put the fitted sheet on and I saw something running out from the sheet onto the floor. Lance! Lance! A big spider just ran out from our sheet onto the floor!

He gallantedly came inside, got down to look under the bed and said, "Is that it?" I got down also and looked - it was an old, dead brown leaf! I found two more "spiders" in the fitted sheet .... they were blown into the fitted sheet by the wind .... and blew out when I shook the sheet out to put it on the bed.

Here is a scorpion that Lance found in our bedroom recently. We released it into the vacant field near us.