Field notes, v1308
Page 223
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Acre, H. August 9 Went to the study site at 0800h w/ Billie, Dave, and the Fogdens; partly cloudy. At 0822h Dave got C. molossus ♂#13's sign from under a boulder ≈ 5m NNW of yesterday. At 0826h C. molossus ♀/12 at the same site as yesterday, visible back into the ledge in shade. At 0900h we found C. molossus ♂ #3 crawling in dense grass & acacia on the edge of large rains ≈ 200m S SE of yesterday, on W side of the big stream. The other channel of Silver Creek now has 1 m high waterfalls, and the main one runs muddy - more water here than I've ever seen. At 0939h we walk up an embankment opposite the ledge where C. molossus ♂#9 has been, got his sign behind us and spotted him in copulation w/ a large ♀ under the edge of a ceity plant next to the road! While we watch from a few m away he periodically engages in forward jerks (those are like fast japs) against her back, tongue flicks and occasional tail movements. They face the eastern morning sun, but it is still overcast. At times his tail arches in a "?" shape - his is parallel to the ground and he periodically lifts and lowers it. His right hemipenis is inserted, the basal few mm visible as swollen lavende. At 1017h we saw him push his hemipenis further into her, and at 1031h I clearly saw him use a rather arthward reverse rectilinear ascension to follow when she moves.