Dominican Republic: A Story of Caves and Bats

"In the island, which I have said before was called Hispaniola, there are very lofty and beautiful mountains, great farms, groves and fields, most fertile both for cultivation and for pasturage, and well adapted for constructing buildings. The convenience of the harbors in this island, and the excellence of the rivers, in volume and salubrity, surpass human belief, unless one should see them"

Letter of Christopher Columbus to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, 1492



The heights of Pico Duarte (3098 m), and the Cordillera Central. Behind, the Chain de la Selle or Sierra Baoruco.

November 2004 found me on the island of Hispaniola. To my great pleasure and experience, I was more than very excited to go. His research concentrated on the study of a peculiar group of bats called natalids for his doctoral dissertation (see results here). That study entitled surveying and studying living populations of these bats in their natural habitats, and visiting the island of Hispaniola was essential.

Practically straight out of the plane, we were scouting for areas to set our mistnets and observe our first bats. On that first night, near the quintessential city of Santo Domingo, we captured a female fig-eating bat Phyllops falcatus (haitiensis), which was weighted, measured, and released. The efforts were rewarded by the company of researchers Adrian Tejedor, Kevin Murray and Nelson Marcano.



Fig-eating bat Phyllops falcatus (haitiensis) near Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Next day, and after many hours of bureaucratic roundabouts, we set out west, across the mountains of the Sierra de Neiba and on to the Valley of Neiba on our way to Barahona. We were looking for a fisherman town called Los Patos, and a set of caves perched in the mountains of Barahona. Several other scientists had marked this location as a site of interest for bat researchers (Miller, 1916-1929), and we were following their footsteps.



End hills of the Sierra Baoruco, in the small fishermen town of Los Patos, near Barahona.

The caves 1 and 2 of Los Patos are almost vertical, inside the belly and atop the hills from which the ocean is visible. The rocks there are limestone conglomerates, which with time and erosion rolled down and covered the beach in a thick blanket of polished pebbles. Such surface made our sleep there somewhat uncomfortable, but the view was spectacular.


Los Patos beach, near Barahona, looking towards the Caribbean Sea.



View from the mouth of Cueva de Los Patos 1, over looking the Caribbean Sea.

Inside the caves laid examples of the ancient fauna, represented by delicate fossils. The floors had guano and the walls had bats. The species we observed included ghost-faced bats Mormoops blainvillei, large fruit-eating bats Brachyphylla nana, Artibeus jamaicensis, the pollen and nectar eaters Monophyllus redmani and Phyllonycteris obtusa, plus large-eared insectivorous Macrotus waterhousei. The bat and bird faunas were exquisitely diverse.

Cueva de Los Patos 1-2. Roost of large fruit bats Brachyphylla nana (pumila) and Phyllonycteris obtusa.

Large-eared bat Macrotus waterhousei. This is the large subspecies waterhousei, which lives on Hispaniola.



However, the natalids, Natalus major and Chilonatalus micropus, the goal of the expedition almost, eluded us. Our single Ch. micropus was caught late one night, as we were putting away the mist net. Just then came this low, butterfly-like, flying bat into the net. So far, this remains the only reported Ch. micropus roost site on Hispaniola (Tejedor, 2011: 35).

Chilonatalus micropus from Los Patos Cave 2

Under the chilly effect of the mountains, we headed back to Santo Domingo. On our way through the valley of the Cordillera Central towards the south, we stopped at Bani, birthplace of Maximo Gomez (1836-1905). Gomez was a brave and dedicated General of Cuban wars for independence between 1868 and 1898, and the later Cuban-Spanish-American War. Cuban history values the great contribution from this Dominican generalissimo (see fig. below).

General Maximo Gomez, early 1900s. From Library of American History, Vol.VII.

The roads crossing through the central valley of the Cordillera Oriental to Sabana del Mar, on the south coast of Samana Bay, were very deteriorated or non-existing, rough, and dangerous. But these were filled with interesting flora and fauna that we stopped to observe.

Hispaniolan giant Tarantula Phormictopus cancerides

One of our first encounters was this Hispaniolan giant Tarantula (Phormictopus cancerides), and one or two Ashy-faced owls (Tyto glaucops). While asking for directions in the town of Sabana de la Mar, we spotted a large bat flying around a light post in the main central park. We parked to take a closer look. It must have been nearly 12 am, and we were dead tired, but stunned to see a large bulldog fisher bat (Noctilio leporinus) apparently eating insects attracted by the light of the lamp post!

Noctilio leporinus on the central plaza of Sabana del Mar. The white dots are likely insects captured in the glare.

Finally, that night we arrived a natural reserve station on the Haitises Park. The Haitises are a conglomerate of natural wonders. It has a high diversity both in fauna and flora, and interesting  formations called "mogotes" or in this case known as "haitises". These are conic karst hills, like the mogotes of my previous post on Pinar del Rio, western Cuba. These, however, are formed on younger limestone, smaller, and covered with more vegetation, but similarly impressive.



Conic karts, limestone formation of the Haitises as we saw them from our boat.
Courtesy and Copyright of Adrian Tejedor.

Conic karts, limestone formation of the Haitises as we saw them from our boat.
Courtesy and Copyright of Adrian Tejedor.

This variation of karst formation or karst geomorphology (as in geological manifestations of the terrain), was formed by dissolution of the limestone over time. In the Caribbean islands similar karstic formations are present, but most profusely in Cuba, Jamaica, this region of Hispaniola, and in Puerto Rico. However, they are all distinct in their level of maturity. The oldest and thus more mature are those of Pinar del Rio in Cuba, whereas those of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico are formed on most recent rocks.

Massive limestone haitises in the bay of Samana. One can almost imagine
how C. Columbus saw the Tainos right on these beaches he was there.

To get to these rounded hills, which from afar looked like elephants half submerged in the waters of the San Lorenzo bay, we had to ride on a small boat. This boat took our party along the crannies and crevices between the massive rock domes of the Haitises. We were looking for the intricate cave systems that honeycomb these formations, so important to our research since they were to host the fauna we sought.



Railroad Cave appears from within the drowned elephants that are the karst hills of the Haitises.

One of these caves was Cueva de la Linea, or Railroad Cave, known to us from the early research of William M. Gabb, William L. Abbott, Gerrit S. Miller,  and later that of Krieger (1928-29).

Railroad Cave is near an abandoned railway track near the bay of San Lorenzo. The area is surrounded by crescent sandy beaches, marshes, and caves. The most notable caves being  Simmons's Cave, Boca del Infierno cave (the Mouth of Hell), and Railroad cave, which is known locally as Cueva del Templo (cave of the temple).

William M. Gabb explored caves around this area between 1869 and 1871, finding extensive evidence of pre-Columbian inhabiting. Exploration continued calling the attention of William L. Abbott who explored several of these caves, including Railroad cave in 1883 and then in 1916. It was the former which enticed the National Museum to send Gerrit S. Miller later that year, and then again in 1928 with H. Krieger. It was this last party which carried out serious archeological and paleontological research there (1929).

Sunlit Cueva de la Linea or Railroad cave in Samana Bay.

The Ciguayan tainos inhabited these beach caves, and their former presence is felt by their many shell heaps (Strombus pugilis) at their entrances and the unforgettable cave art in their anterooms. The shell heaps also include the bones of the animals the Tainos used for food, such as hutias, manatees, conchs and fish, and are generally called kitchen middens in the archeological jargon. One can't help but imagine what Columbus saw when he visited the bay of Samana to observe an eclipse of the moon in 1492. Then, the natives lived on the north shore of the bay.

No doubt we enjoyed this particular cave much. The pictographs and petroglyphs, like those the figure below, carved into the cave rock, depicted faces, handprints, and sketches of animals like egrets, dogs, sharks, and others. Moreover, there were large bat colonies in very hot rooms separated by small water intrusions, deep into the cave system.

Ciguayan Taino petroglyph at Cueva de la Linea, Samana.
One of the many human artistic representations of the area.

Moving inside these hot rooms was uncomfortable because the extreme temperature and smell of bat urine made breathing difficult. Often we had to stop and hold on to the wet walls to catch our breath before moving on forward. In the center of these rooms, there were accumulations of bat excrements and all kind of invertebrate fauna that feeds on deceased bats and the guano on the floor. The same guano that is often mined as a natural fertilizer.



Natalus major in its roost, Cueva de Cristian, Hato Mayor.



A colony of the sought after Natalus major, inside a well-vented room Cueva de Cristian, Hato Mayor.

But what was the purpose of all this?

Fieldwork is not an easy task and is well accompanied by multiple difficulties that researchers must endure reaching their goals. From sleeping on cave floors infested with ticks and roaches, to having no food or commodities, to being attacked by the native fauna (people included).

It is sad that much destruction occurs well within the boundaries of several national parks and other areas. Illegal burning, cutting, and cave guano extraction threatens and disturbs the natural fauna. This includes the nests of the Palm crows, the endangered Ridgway's hawk, Hispaniola amazon parrots, natalid bats, and a myriad of plant life; living organisms in general, but especially those that are endangered or vulnerable already. Many of the well-forested areas are cleared for avocado, coconut, and plantain plantations or tourism. Therefore, it is important that we document the existing flora and fauna so that we can establish sensitive plans of protection, so that the wonderful areas are not lost to posterity, and that other may enjoy its natural wonders in the same way that we have.

Samana peninsula and San Lorenzo bay seen from atop one of the Haitises.
A scenery reminder of the natural wonders that must be protected from complete human destruction.
Once these are gone, they are gone forever.

The experience of research, not just traveling to exotic places to see interesting organisms, but with the hope of discovering something new, is very rewarding. In the end, our efforts are towards a better understanding of the natural environment that surrounds us all.

We think these environments and their organisms are worth preserving, but one blog cannot capture the natural complexity and beauty of these amazing islands. The world would surely be a dull place without these magnificent ecosystems. We should strive to protect them, instead of destroying them.


Cited Literature

Krieger, H. W. 1929. Archeological and historical investigations in Samana, Dominican Republic. US National Museum Bulletin, 147.

Tejedor, Adrian. 2011. Systematics of funnel-eared bats (Chiroptera: Natalidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 353.

Barbuda Gets a New Fossil Bat Record

I am happy to announce the first record of Peters' ghost-faced bat Mormoops megalophylla from the Caribbean island of Barbuda (Orihuela and Tejedor, 2015). Our report is based on fossil remains excavated by the late Walter Auffenberg and F. Wayne King during their fieldwork there in the late 1950s.

Fossil left dentary (mandible) of Peters ghost-faced bat Mormoops megalophylla from the Barbuda, FLMNH.

These remains represent an interesting extralimital record for these bats. They, along with other known fossil bats, indicate that the Antigua-Barbuda archipelago in the Lesser Antilles had a greater bat diversity than today. This is the apparent scenario in all of the West Indian islands.

Peters ghost-faced bats are medium-sized insectivorous bats, well-spread endemics of the Americas. They belong to the Mormoopidae bat family, where some are peculiarly called ghost-faced bats because of their horrific facial warts and flaps. Such intricate facial ornaments help these bats to echolocate, a sonar-like sound emission that allows them to catch insects while in flight. Despite their terrific facial expressions - which many find fascinating, I included - they are proficient insect hunters, especially of moths, and can devour dozens of them in a single night. Mormoopids are among the fastest flying bats.


Adult Antillean ghost-faced bat Mormoops blainvillei from Los Patos, in southern Dominican Republic, Hispaniola. This species is very similar to Peter's ghost-faced bat M. megalophylla but is much smaller and endemic to the Caribbean.

My research often takes me to visit museum collections. Some of these collections can be well over a century old, some can be even older. Most museum's priced collections reside in their drawers and cabinets, away from the public eye. Sometimes field samples are sent to museums where they are stored away awaiting their cleaning. Sometimes they are forgotten, only to be rediscovered decades later. For researchers, these can be real treasure troves. I was fortunate to find such a hidden treasure while studying fossil bats in the vertebrate paleontology collections at the University of Florida in 2004 (FLMNH at UF) were A. Tejedor and I (re)discovered these specimens.

While looking through some boxes we found particular remains of Mormoops megalophylla within the multiple vials of unidentified and uncatalogued remains from caves at Two Foot Bay, on the eastern side of the island of Barbuda in the Lesser Antilles. They had been erroneously identified as another smaller but highly similar species, the Antillean ghost-faced bat Mormoops blainvillei.

Fossil mormoopid dentary collection from Barbuda stored for research, Florida Museum of Natural History.

Such a discovery is not unexpected. Many of the material collected in these caves still remains to be studied and cataloged. It is often the practice of field and museum researchers to keep some of the original sediments saved in museum collections for further research in the future.

In this sense, the museum's archival role is evident. They serve as a record of life's history. An educational institution dedicated to research and preservation. It is important that museums continue to fulfill their roles, because as it is the case in science, one never knows from where will the next discovery come from.

To share my love for museums once more, please visit my previous post The Stories in Museum Drawers.

Winter Solstice & End of the Year Celebrations

The end of the year always brings a bit of reflection. We have now passed the year's winter solstice, which occurred in the Northern Hemisphere on December 22. Our planet Earth is, and all of us living in it are, moving towards perihelion when we will be closest to the Sun. But wait, that makes no sense. How come if we are closer to the sun we are in winter!? Well, that makes more sense for the Southern Hemisphere, than to us in the Northern Hemisphere. This is because the Earth's path of rotation around the sun, which is a year in our human calendars, is not a circle but instead is oblong or ellipsoid. This means that there will be times when the Earth will be closer to the Sun, and others when we are farther from the Sun, as we revolve around in our orbit around the Sun. Come January we will be in full perihelion.

During the winter solstice, the Northern Hemisphere angles away from the sun's direct rays, but the Southern Hemisphere angles towards it. The angling away from the sun gives us winter, whereas is summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

The winter solstice marks the longest night of the year, and the shortest day of the year. Right now we are experiencing earlier sunsets, longer nights, and shorter days. This will continue until de Spring. This natural astronomical shift has been a source of magical mysticism and celebration for millennia.



14th Century "Roman de Fauvel" from the Bibliotheque National de France, Paris).
It depicts a sort of feast, usually associated to the medieval Feast of the Fools.

The solstices are astronomical phenomena. They have been a source of celebration and festivities for many western cultures. Ancient civilizations have long observed these variations, many which celebrated the changes or seasons and erecting monuments to help them predict their approach. Famous examples of these are, of course, Stonehenge in Southern England, and  Machu Picchu in Peru.



Intihuatana stone, in Machu Picchu. A calendar stone atop the ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

These festivities we still celebrate today but under different names. The pagan Anglo-Saxons celebrated Modraniht around December 25, other celebrated Yule (more common among the Wiccans of today), and the Romans had Saturnalia. Roman Saturnalia  was a celebration around all the end of the year in honor of the god Saturn. During the medieval period, Saturnalia was known by Christians as the Feast of Fools of Festum Factuorum, and the Yule Log celebrations, many which were altogether later adopted and modified into our modern Christmas.



Yule Log illustration in Robert Chambers 1864 edition of Books of Days, pg. 734. Wikipedia commons.

On that note, happy end of the year festivities, whichever way you may call them. May the new year bring you happiness and health.

This Was Once the Bottom of the Caribbean Sea

The rocks that make up these low hills are part of the ancient Caribbean sea. In a way, the rocks of this abandoned quarry are a museum, a small window into a shallow sea that divided northwestern Cuba during the Miocene, between 23 and 5 million years ago (fig. 1). This is the Guines formation. Its low rolling hills encase the valleys between Havana and Matanzas, and other parts of northern Cuba. Its rocks are  especially interesting for their richness in fossilized teeth of the extinct Megalodon shark, whales, and with them the many clues they hold about the ancient Caribbean sea world.


Fig. 1: These hard limestones were once the bottom of a warm and shallow sea in the northern Caribbean.

Carcharodon megalodon Agassiz, 1843 is a giant version of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) of our modern oceans, and one of the top predators of its time. It is also one of the most recognized fossils, and one of the most coveted by fossil collectors. In Cuba, fossils of this extinct shark are interestingly common on limestone of the Habana-Matanzas carbonate hills, where local quarrymen frequently find them among whales, dugongs, and other shark fossils (fig. 2) (Iturralde et al., 1996).

Fig. 2: Carcharodon megalodon from the Guines formation. 

Overall the fossilized teeth are superbly preserved. Many can be found together with other teeth, invertebrate fossils, or alone encased in the rock matrix. This same matrix holds microscopic clues to the environment - the paleoecology of the ancient seas where these and other creatures lived - plus clues to how they came to be preserved in such way for millions of years.

On closer inspection, the limestone of the Guines fm. are composed of small microscopic organisms, large mollusks (gastropods and bivalves), sea urchins, and very few corals (fig. 3-6). This type of limestone is called fossiliferous limestones for its abundance of fossils. It is also known as fine-grained, often recrystallized biodetritic limestone because the minerals that make up the rock have changed their structure after many millions of years of exposure to water and other conditions. It is biodetritic because the larger clasts,  were once parts and bits of living organisms, such as the mollusk mentioned above, that became part of the sediment when this was a sea.

Fig. 3. Gastropods and bivalve molds and casts on limestone of the formation.

For instance, fig. 3 shows a rock face where many benthic organisms that were once living within the seafloor are preserved. The half moon structures are casts of bivalve shells, now filled in with minerals. The rounded structures are gastropods and parts of sea urchins. Shark teeth are found in such mix.


Fig. 4: Schizaster cf. guirensis? A regular echinoderm - a sea urchin of this Miocene ancient sea.

The Guines formation dates to the middle-late Miocene and is well over 10 million years old. Over the last 100 years, it has had several descriptions and names. It was once called the Yumuri Limestone by DeGoyler (1918) and Bermudez and Hofftetter (1959), or the Yumuri Formation. Judoley and Furrazola considered this formation just a variation or member (1971). The detailed studies of Iturralde (1969) clearly establish it as a distinct Miocene formation, covering extensive areas in meridional western Cuba (Franco et al, 1992).

(Trivia: The Miocene epoch was named by one of the first geologists Sir Charles Lyell).

Fig. 5: A single scleractinian coral polyp Scolymia cf. cubensis Edwards and Haime, 1849 alongside bivalve clams. The Scolymia is a fossil index of the middle-late Miocene (~ 13 to 5 million years ago).

Under the microscope, and after making a very thin slice of the rock (thin enough to allow light to go through the rock), one can see microscopic shells of tiny water snails called pteropods, miliolid, and amphistaginid foraminifera, within a matrix of the minerals calcite (CaCO3), and dolomite CaMg(CO3)2 which has grown later. In thin section as it is called, the bioclasts have long been eroded and dissolved, leaving behind empty spaces in the shapes of the organisms that were once in the matrix known as ghosts (fig. 5).


Fig. 6: Thin slide showing the ghosts of bivalve shells, a planktic and miliolid foraminifera in the center field of view.
The sparitic crystals suggest recrystallization (see the prismatic crystals inside the ghosts).

The fauna and the minerals suggest that the Guines limestone formed in relatively shallow and warm waters, teeming with bottom living and burrowing lifeforms in its carbonate substrate. The large vertebrate remains indicate the presence of large sharks and whales, and all of them an intricate warm water environment, likely forming open water channel. Such an environment was suggested by previous research Iturralde (1969) and visible in the paleo reconstructions of MacPhee and Iturralde (2000). Figure 7.



Fig. 7: Paleoreconstruction of the Miocene seaway that separated what is now the region of Havana-Matanzas.
Form MacPhee and Iturralde, 2000.  

Fig. 8: A large fragment of bone encased on the limestone. This is large enough to be from a Miocene vertebrate,
maybe even a whale!

But what do the rocks and fossils say about that past? The fossil fauna of the Guines fm. suggests that this given region was once a shallow marine environment, open, with very few reef banks. The frequent fossil shark fossils suggest that this area could have been a shark nursery. I will speculate further and think that it was so because it supported marine mammals and fish to feed these large sharks, and because the basin was warm and confined enough to be a nursery (fig. 7-8). More evidence, as always, is needed.

Stay tuned for more !

Cited Literature

Bermudez, B., and Hofftetter (1959). Stratigraphic Lexicon of Cuba. Lexique Stratigraphique International, 5, Amerique Latine, Fasc. 2c, Cuba et lles Adjacents, 140 pág.

DeGoyler (1918). The geology of Cuban petroleum deposits. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 2: 133-167.

Franco-Alvarez, G.L. et al. (1992). Léxico Estratigráfico de Cuba. Centro de Nacional de Información Geológica, La Habana, 658 pág.

Iturralde-Vinent, M. (1969). El Neogeno de la Provincia de Matanzas, Cuba. Publicacion Especial Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidraulicos, 7: 3-30.

Iturralde-Vinent, M., G. Hubbell, and R. Rojas Consuegra. 1996. Catalog of Cuban fossil Elasmobranchii (Paleocene-Pliocene) and Paleoceanographic Implications for their Lower-Middle Miocene Ocurrence. Boletin de la Sociedad Jamaicana de Geologia, 31: 7-21.

Judoley and Furrazola (1967). La posición de Cuba en la estructura geológica de la región del Caribe. Tecnológica, 5 (6).

MacPhee, R.D.E., e Iturralde-Vinent, M., (2000). A short history of Greater Antillean land mammals: biogeography, paleogeography, radiations, and extinctions. Tropics, 10 (1): 145-154.

The First Thanksgiving in North America: Saint Augustine 1565

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even though Thanksgiving is a holiday we celebrate every year in North America, few north Americans actually know that it was celebrated for the first time in Saint Augustine, Florida. Most people believe it is a holiday associated with the puritans - pilgrim immigrants of the Plymouth area. But in reality, it was first celebrated by the Spanish of Florida 55 years before the pilgrims.

Fort San Marcos, completed in 1695, is a historical icon of colonial Saint Augustine, North Florida.

The Spanish discovered Florida around 1512, but did not formally or permanently settle it until Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded Saint Augustine in 1565. Of course, these first celebrations were not as we are too often taught in school.

Museums around the world, and especially in North America, often set aside special exhibitions to celebrate this holiday as part of our cultural heritage.

Sample of early diet including pigs, deer, and corn, excavated from early colonial Spanish St. Augustine on
display at FLMNH.

The Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville is celebrating by opening the doors of its newest exhibit "First Colony: Our Spanish Origins", based on artifacts of the early Spanish colony excavated by archeologists in the old town of Saint Augustine. The small village founded then was the place where the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1565 by Menendez de Aviles and his group of settlers. The artifacts showcased here are utilitarian wares used for alimentary purposes, including dinner plates, sauces, bottles, and large containers used to store and serve food.

Early bottles, and bottle bottoms showing maker marks.

The expo is small, but very well planned, mounted, and diverse: a real treat for those interested in early American history, and in Spanish colonial history. Here I showcase some of the artifacts on display. If you cant make the trip, visit the FLMNH website here or watch this YouTube video.

Pottery shards: parts of plates and saucer from archeological sites in Saint Augustine, Fl

With everything that is going on the world today, it is a great opportunity to put aside all ideological differences and rejoice in our intermittent existence. Look to our place in this amazing planet for what it is: a once in a lifetime opportunity not to be wasted by conflict.

In the realm of flowers, a perfumed land,

Girt by the sea, by soft winds fanned;

Ravaged by war in years grown old,

Its former glory a tale long told,

Stands the quaint old Spanish city.

The scene of many a hard-fought fight,

Of many a siege, when Spanish might

Was o'er the land: in its decay

It hath a beauty to live away,

That quaint old Spanish city.

Poems of Places

Saint Augustine Standard Guide (1885)