Puerto Rico Giant Ameiva

Ameiva exsul is the largest member of of the Genus Ameiva in Puerto Rico and nearby Islands.

These two were photographed in the gardens of the Puerto Convention Center in San Juan prior to copulating. The male bites the female to position itself to introduce the hemipenis.

Body size in males haven been associated with better reproductive success, hence producing more offspring compared to medium and small sized individuals. In other words body size in males determines an advantage when they compete for females.

The female lay eggs that are normally buried and kept humid until they hatch. The animals feed on insects, other lizards and eggs, fungi and fruits.

References:

1. http://www.kingsnake.com/westindian/
2. Lewis A. R, Tirado G. and Sepulveda, J.; Body Size and Paternity in a Teiid Lizard (Ameiva exsul) Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 34, No 1, pp. 110-120, 200

Fuegos Artificiales

Everyone would gather
On the twenty-fourth of May
Sitting in the sand
To watch the fireworks display...

...says Rush's song Lakeside Park. Here in Puerto Rico we have to wait for another country's independence celebration to watch a fireworks display. This year I was looking forward for the fourth of July's fireworks to finally practice some techniques to photograph...well, fireworks.

Now that I have acquired what is needed to shoot pictures in low light, I have been reading many articles and websites that say getting good shots of fireworks is not that hard. You need some basic equipment to achieve decent pictures: a camera (of course) with a wide angle lens, a tripod and a remote shutter release. Once you have that, you play around with the settings and the only thing you are missing are the fireworks.

I have bought most of my photography equipment from Adorama.com. They have a series of how-to-videos made by @jmarkwallace that are great to learn different techniques. Last week he tweeted 8 tips for mastering firework photography. Today I applied them with my camera and here are the results. These shots were taken from Parque de la Laguna del Condado facing the lagoon and the Dos Hermanos bridge that connects San Juan with the Condado area.

This was my first time shooting fireworks and my window of opportunity wasn't that big since the show lasted less than 10 minutes. I used my Canon Rebel XTi on BULB mode, f/10 - f/14, mounted on a tripod and released the shutter remotely, I used two of my lenses .

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS

Canon Ef-s 18-55 3.5/5.6 IS