Rainforest Rick set off on another adventure, this time to revisit the lush, biodiverse paradise of Puerto Rico. Trekking through El Yunque, home to the sacred coquí frog and the native Taíno gods. Wandering among various native plants and animals found nowhere else, every step felt like a deep breath of warm tropical life, quite a difference from the concrete tundra of Milwaukee. If the jungle energy wasn’t enough, exploring the glowing, bioluminescent bays and the beautiful shoreline of Fajardo and Arecibo added a refreshing touch to the journey, a good balance of both!
Exploring in the night with some high powered flashlights, we found a wild invasive enemy of the coquí frogs, the cuban frogs! A little bit larger, these frogs eat the coquís’s eggs in the trees and disturb them.
The coquís sing, while the cubans croak, a fun natural rivalry…
Above are pictures of the Coqui’s invasive enemy, the Cuban frogs.
Rick was recently contacted to “save” two little cuban frogs that snuck along with some tropical fruits from a local Asian market in WI. They now live at the frog rooms right next to the native coquís calling.
At an outdoor indigenous museum, we even saw the endemic Emerald Anole, which welcomed us right on it, sitting on a tree with Taíno petroglyphs, the feel of ceremony, community, and connection was presented.
We also stumbled across wild coffee, cocoa fruit (chocolate) and a mix of banana, plantain, and domesticated coffee that grow together similar to the three sisters (beans, squash, corn) in Wisconsin for better production!
