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Indie, the cutest tapir

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Daily Blog Entry 8:

We woke up for a 5 o’clock breakfast today to leave Las Cuevas. I was glad to leave the mites, chiggers, and the constant fear of insects falling on me. However, I was sad to leave the place where I got to become more comfortable with insects, my fellow TFBs, and lowering my standards of hygiene. I fell asleep until we stopped by a general store at Santa Elena before we headed to the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave. We got there and left the vans at around 10 o’clock. We swam across a river, walked across another river, and had a 17-ish minute walk to finally reach the cave.

The inside of the cave was incredible. We saw multiple ceramic pieces partially swallowed by the ground, and I couldn’t believe that the artifacts were not harmed by looters or removed by archeologists. The most interesting find were the human sacrifice remains, including the near-intact skeleton at the very end of the cave. The other remain had a very neat skull where I could visibly see the slanted forehead and the remaining tooth.

After we got out of the cave and had lunch, I had a bit of a mishap, but it was all good once I got into the van. We were in the van for about an hour and a half, so I bolted out of the van as soon as we got to the Tropical Educaiton Center (TEC) to go pee. I ran around the TEC trying to figure out where the bathroom is when I saw two different agoutis. That was pretty interesting.

Once we finished eating dinner, we rode on the back of the pickup truck to go to the Belizean zoo. I got a boa constrictor on my neck, and her name is Queen Green. (I am scared of Queen Green) I think the most surprising things were how small Central American jaguars are, how funky the ocelots sound, how strange the gibnut looks, and HOW CUTE TAPIRS ARE. I was ecstatic that I got to pet Indie the Tapir. We could tell that he was very excited by the food we were giving him. I’m just happy that I got to pet them.

Ants. We’re not in Las Cuevas but we’re still not in Glovers, so here’s my taxon mojo:
At the end of the tour of the zoo, we saw a lot of small winged insects on the floor. Scott picked up one of the insects and it was a queen fire ant. The other insects were on their mating swarm as well.

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Day 7: Upping the Ant-e; Las Cuevas Sends us Off in Style

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Today was as crazy of a last day as we could’ve hoped for. I woke up at a luxurious 6:45 since I couldn’t do the bird tower hike with the rest of the gang because of my knee. Once they came back we ate dinner and reconvened to start picking up the camera traps we set out 4 days ago. We went along the Monkey Trail, Saffron Trail, San Pastor and 50 Hecatre plot to pick up our traps. Along the way, we saw a brown anole and a golden turtle beetle, both of which were really cool. I also saw a harvestman of the same round body species that I’ll have to look up and an unidentified species of orb weaver spider.

A Leaf Cutter Ant Queen

We came back, ate lunch, and spent a little time catching up on notebooks and listening to music on the deck. We met up with the group from Southern Mississippi to go on leaf cutter excavations, led by the one and only Scott Solomon. He led us into the Monkey Trail where we spent some time excavating the 1-year old nest. After digging around the hole for a while, we were able to see the fungus chamber and extract the fungus ball and the queen ant, which was enormous. We walked along saffron to the giant leaf cutter nest from before, where we spent a while excavating the side of the hill. The Southern Mississippi group left for dinner, but we continued excavating until we ran into the garbage disposal chamber and felt the heat from the decomposing trash they had left.

We came back, showered, and had dinner before heading to the activity we were the most excited about: checking the camera traps. Everyone tried to have low expectations, but it was obvious that we had high expectations. In the first camera traps alone, we spotted a tapir and a jaguar before coming across herds of peccaries, curassows, a 9-ringed armadillo, a coatimundi, two pumas, another jaguar, a rat, a snake, and a lot of photos of ourselves. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited flipping through photos on a screen. All of us were extremely surprised and really excited about the results that we found, even though our initial hypothesis about off-trail sights being more rich, abundant, and diverse was incorrect. After that, we worked on our blogs and packed up to prepare for saying goodbye to Las Cuevas.

Arachnids found: Orb Weaver of an unidentified species on 50-hectare plot on a web with striped legs and a green back. Large wolf spider in the leaf litter that scurried around, looked like the Allocosa family. Florida Bark Scorpion, under the stairs of the lecture room with babies on her back. Another Florida Bark Scorpion on the deck of the dorms, froze when we got close.

All Bark No Bite
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ATM Cave (Day 8)

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To call our day a day of travel, which it was, would be inappropriate because of all the spectacular sights we saw. Between Las Cuevas and the Tropical Education Center we stopped at a cave and a zoo.

At the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, meaning Cave of the Crystal Sepulchre, we swam in Blue-Gatorade-color water into the ritual sites where Mayans of the Classical Period connected to the gods. We were told that the priests ventured in harder and harder places to get to out of a sense of desperation. Previous attempts to make offerings and build a rapport with the gods seemed to have failed when drought, famine, and starvation stirred unrest among the people. To reach these caves was to get closer to the gods so they might better hear the demands and receive the sacrifices that the Mayans wanted to share with gods like Chaac, the god of rain.

Desperate they must have been, in a sense. Captives, heavy, clunky pottery were dragged in to spaces that people can barely fit through. One spot in particular was dangerously small, which we joked was capable of decapitating cave travelers who were not careful. Once in a carefully selected site, chocolate, pottery, captives, and infants were offered to the gods. If you have any interest in the type of The Crystal Maiden Actun Tunichil Muknalhuman remains of Mayan human sacrifice, look up the name of the cave and you will be able to find photos of it. Due to past accidents involving cameras, we were not allowed to bring cameras to take our own photos.

At the Belize zoo, we saw native animals that we have already seen in our camera traps (tapir, jaguar, puma, peccary) and many animals that we haven’t (pygmy owl, ocelet, Morrelet’s crocodile). The animals were so well trained that some would sit, walk around a tree, and do a somersault.

These are definitely places I want to return to in the future and have definitely be a highlight in our trip so far!

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Day 5: Hello Darkness my old Friend

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Today we designed an experiment in which we attempted to study the affects that hurricane gaps- the large gap in the canopy forest- that occurs when a tree is knocked over because of a hurricane- has on forest floor diversity. We didn’t really see any significant results, but perhaps a longer study over more area will tell us how natural disturbances such as hurricanes have on ecosystems like the rain forest.

Our poster presentation

After dinner, we all grabbed our hiking boots and headlights and headed on a night hike. The leaves of the acacia tree were folded- I actually did not know that this happened at night. The acacia tree produces food (beltian bodies) for ants that live inside of its thorns and the ants defend the plant from predators. I was able to see the ants eating the beltian bodies on one of leaves. I have learned about this type of symbiosis in several EBIO classes and it was pretty amazing to see it in real life. Additionally, there were tiny turtles in a mud pond, and  we also saw the spine and hand of a monkey, which was likely dropped after being half-eaten by a predator like a jaguar or a bird of prey.

We saw a red backed coffee snake which we first thought was a red coral snake, i.e. a very poisonous snake. This is an example of Batesian mimicry, which is when a harmless animal mimics some aspects of the physical appearance of a poisonous animal. This is so that predators think that the harmless animal is poisonous, even though it is not. In this case, the red backed coffee snake was patterned very similar to a red coral snake, but different enough so that we could make the distinction.

After we returned to the clearing where the research station is at, we were able to see the stars and it was nothing like I had ever seen before. At home, you could see a few stars and planets scattered around the sky, but only in more suburban/rural areas.  Here however, the sky was FULL of twinkly celestial bodies.  I only went to sleep after clouds drifted overhead and covered the sky, because otherwise I would have stared at them into the morning.

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Day 6: Crap Kingdom Pt 2: Urine Trouble

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I woke up again at 6:15 to finish my blog from the previous day and go birding. We ate a quick breakfast and met outside to regroup before the collection of our urine samples. Before we left, we read sections of the novel Crap Kingdom, which we found in the book exchange in the lab, which was entertaining because it was so bad. We left for our hike and collected our urine samples one by one while making sure to label our samples. We saw a smoothed anole, a Gasterocanthis cancriformis (a type of orb weaver spider) and a jumping spider, all of which were chilling in the leaf litter.

Gasterocanthis cancriformis

 

We came back and began sorting through our samples. We used a fish net as a sieve to catch the bugs and sorted through them using microscopes to identify the morphospecies. We all separated our tasks and worked on the poster while sorting through the species. We took a quick break to play in the rain for a while before getting back to work.

We finished our poster while two new groups came in: one was from the Belikan Beer Company and the other was from University of Southern Mississippi. We finished our poster and were asked whether we wanted to present to the other college group. After deliberation, we decided to and presented for all 25 of them. Elena started the presentation with Welcome to Pee-lize so it went really well. After presenting, we went to dinner and ate beans, tortillas, and potato salad. We did our lectures with Kristen covering mammals, Chloe covering reptiles, and Sam talking about tropical diseases. We all went to the lab and headed to bed after working on blogs and notebooks.

Arachnids found: Gasterocanthis cancriformis- small white morph, found on underside of a leaf found in leaf litter of 50-hectare plot; Jumping spider- green spider, jumping around in the leaf litter of 50-hectare plot; Florida bark scorpion- large black with red/brown legs, found on deck outside lab caught in jar by Scott.

All of these were expected

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Day 5: We turn the Chiquibul into a Tropical Rave Forest

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I woke up bright and early at 6:15 again, as I’ve taken to for every day of this trip. After spotting a chachalaca and more oropendolas, we had a breakfast of eggs, fryjacks, and beans. After that, Scott gave us our briefing for the day over hurricane gaps and their affect on the abundance of pioneer species if trees that fall have new growth or not. After deciding as a group that we would try to compare the growth of pioneer species on new growth trees vs dead trees, we headed out on the shortcut trail. After an hour of looking at the hurricane gap, we decided that our question was almost impossible to answer so we decided to compare richness in gap areas and nongap areas instead.

We went down the gap and took five samples and then took five more samples in nongap areas on the rest of the shortcut path and the bird trail. For the samples we threw a quadrant of four white pipes and collected all the leaves in the quadrant. Along the way we spotted a hooded basilisk, two Florida bark scorpions (one with babies on her back) and a few species of harvestmen that I had couldn’t identify but were cool. We came back to the station and had a nice fried rice lunch. We headed to the lab and began working on a poster to present our data. We sorted the leaves into morphospecies and drew up the poster before presenting to Scott.

A Slightly Blurry Harvestmen

 

An Unidentified Green Spider

After a short break, we headed to the classroom for lectures. Sam presented on bees and Jessica presented on amphibians before I presented on auditory and visual communication. At one point during this talk, Adrienne threw her notebook at me after implying that she and Scott were old for not knowing the ultimate sexy song, “Careless Whisper”. So all in all, lectures went well.

 

After dinner, we went on our first night hike to the frog pond and the Mayan Trail, which Pedro joined us on. We saw many cockroaches, white-lipped turtles, wolf spiders, a baby red-backed coffee snake. We turned off all our lights and stayed quiet for a few minutes to see and hear what the rainforest truly is at night, which lasted like five seconds until I put my flashlight under my light blue water bottle so that Elena and I could have a forest rave. We came back and looked at the stars and saw a large wolf spider with an egg sac under the cedar tree. We all showered and worked on our notebooks until we all headed to bed.

Arachnids spotted: harvestmen along every trail-unidentified species but had a very ovular body and differing body lengths; 2 Florida bark scorpions on a log near hurricane gap, one with babies on her back; Many different types of wolf spiders on all trails-notably large one with egg sac underneath cedar tree near dorms. Also, a large one with a yellow abdomen on a leaf in the Monkey Trail; A few furry green spiders with striped legs on tree trunks along all trails- unidentified but had ovular webs

All of these were expected but I was unable to identify a lot of the species and occasionally not even the family so I’ll have to find out more when we have internet.

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Day 4: You Belong with TFBs: Taylor Swift’s World Tour Brings Her to the Chiquibul

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After a slightly more restful night, I woke up at about 6:15 AM and got ready for the day. I chilled on the birding deck for a while before eating a little breakfast. The main issue with the morning was that we had to chug a ton of water to get hydrated for peeing in two vials for our leaf litter experiment. It took me an hour and three water bottles, but I eventually did it. We discussed our plans for the leaf litter pea traps and set off down the 50-hectare trail for our experiment.

We set each trap 100 feet apart on the two segments of the 50-hectare plot. Each of us handled our own pee and buried one in the floor and one tied to a tree, with a water trap next to each. On the trail we ran into a red-banded coral snake, a tailless whip scorpion (Taylor Swift Scorpion), and plenty of blue morphos. We spent the entire morning setting the traps and came back for lunch, where we had broth and rice. I’m still having trouble eating but I was able to get a more of this down.

The Infamous Taylor Swift Spider

We left at 1:20 for caving, after many warnings about how gross we were about to get. Pedro lead us through the nine chambers of the cave, which was covered in guano and mud. Inside, we saw many troglobites, bats, a few other smaller species of tailless whip scorpions, Mayan pottery, and tree roots. We came back after exploring the entire cave, we headed back, showered, and went for dinner.

After dinner, we had out lectures on butterflies and moths (Veronica), Orthoptera (Andressa) and Cave biology (Kristen) Afterwards, a lot of us headed down to the dining room to work on our notebooks and blogs before heading back to sleep.

Arachnids seen: tailless whip scorpion on log of the flagpole of 50 hectare plot that we picked up with our notebook; 2 smaller species amblypygids (unknown name) in the cave on a rock close to each other; Baby Florida bark scorpion in the cracks of the deck of Las Cuevas; Mexican Red Rump Tarantula in its burrow outside the dorms; Unknown large brown spider outside our door- Andressa caught it in a jar; Very large Florida bark scorpion inside the middle sink of the bathroom- fled into the sinkhole

All of these were pretty expected, though the scorpions and the tailless whip scorpions did kind of spring up on us.

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Day 3: We Got a Few Ticks Up Our Sleeves

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I woke up bright and early at 5:15 to bird watch, where we saw oropendolas, a flock of Red Lore parrots, and a friendly bee that loved Elena’s hair. All these sightings were pretty expected but were really cool nonetheless. We ate a nice breakfast of eggs, beans, and journey cakes which I didn’t really eat because I’m still feeling a little queasy. We went up to the lecture hall and Scott gave us a briefing on Camera Traps. We had a quick discussion on some ideas for the traps and, after a long deliberation, we decided on testing how the presence of trails affects mammal presence and abundance.

An Orb Weaver Spider Web Chilling in The Trees

We set off on our hike at 9:30ish and headed down the Monkey Trail, up the Saffron Trail and then down the San Pastor road. Along the way, we ran into a boa constrictor chilling on the forest floor and a huge leafcutter nest, which gave all of us a jump. We came back for lunch, ate some rice and plantains, and headed back out on the 50-hectare plot. We set up our last two camera trap pairs and spotted a zombie ant on a fern. We came back, I showered quickly, then Rafael M. director of the FDC gave us a talk on the conservation efforts on the region, which was really fascinating. We ate dinner and headed to the lecture room for talks, which I gave on arachnids, Elena gave on ants, and Claire gave on the Paradox of Tropical Soils. Afterwards, we all headed to the dining room to work on these blogs!

Arachnids spotted: a wolf spider in the leaf litter of the Saffron Tree-unidentified species; Wolf spider mother on San Pastor Road, spotted by Adrienne with eggs on her back; Unidentified red mite on breakfast table; Many many chigger bites on Veronica, Jessica, and Adrienne (RIP); Almost everyone got a tick bite, including me, under my watch – they hurt; Red Rumps in the clearing by the lecture hall that scurried back into their holes after they saw us.

Can you spot the spider?

All of these are expected, unfortunately, but still really cool.

 

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Day 2: Being Rio On Fleek

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We woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM, even though it definitely didn’t feel that early at all. We got ready, had breakfast, and packed up to drive to our next destination.

First, we stopped at the Rio On pools,

The Rio On Pools

where we had a lot of fun tumbling down the waterfall slides and swimming in the small pools at the base of each waterfall. That is, until we found out that there were leeches in the pools (I was bitten 4 times). We still had fun in the pools though, even doing a train down one of the waterfalls. We got out, changed, and went back into the bus for the next leg of our journey.

Wolf Spider Hiding in the Leaf Litter of Caracol

We arrived at Caracol at about 11 and our tour guide Leo gave us a tour of the Mayan ruins. Along the way, we ran into some cool organisms, including black Howler Monkeys, Oropendola birds, wild avocado, and more. We ate a quick lunch and hopped into the van to go to Las Cuevas

We arrived at Las Cuevas around 4 and met the station manager Rafael, his wife Angelica (in charge of kitchens) and Pedro (the assistant manager) After a quick orientation and some scarlet macaws, we put our stuff up and took a quick hike around the station. Along the way, we saw leaf cutter ants, give-and-take palms, parrots, and a few others. We headed back to the station, ate dinner, and listened to Claire give a talk on birds, Ceyda give a talk on trees, and Chloe give a talk on the canopy. After that, I showered and got ready for tomorrow!

Arachnids: This morning I saw a small garden spider in the bushed of the ecolodge along with his web. I wasn’t able to identify it but it was 5mm and a transparent green in color, with a long ovular. We saw many Mexican Red tarantula webs at the bases on trees near the Mayan plaza though we didn’t get to see the actual organisms and that wold spider above in the leaf litter. Leo gave us information about the mating dances of the males which was fascinating. At Las Cuevas, we saw two Mexican red rumps in the grass outside our lodgings after dinner as they scurried into their burrow. We expected to see a few here so it was unsurprising to find them.

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I cANT Belize what we saw today

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Daily Blog Entry 7:

Today was a wonderful day.

We woke up at around 4:40 to go on the Bird Tower hike, and at around 5:20 we started our hike. The hike was pretty steep, and the trail was slippery from all the leaf litter that was wet from the night rain. Many of us fell on our butts on the way up and our way down. The view from the bird tower was spectacular because we saw the mist covering the rainforest canopy while the sun was rising.

Later while we were walking to retrieve our camera traps, I got to focus on ants and got to see a lot of them, hence the pun in the title. We saw the leaf cutter ants, soldier ant swarm, and a different ant that I did not know much about. Scott squished the ants to figure out what type of ants they were. I always see Sam squishing the ants and smelling them, so I’m glad I got to smell them today. They smelled very herbal and mint-like.

In the afternoon we went to two different ant nests. In the first ant nest, we got to see the fungal chamber of a leaf cutter ants and got to touch it. It was moist and soft. We also got to touch the queen ant and it was about 4 cm big. I let it crawl on my hand and I couldn’t believe it. It was way bigger than I could have ever imagined, and I was very shocked.

Then we went to the second ant’s next where a couple of us started digging and we found the dump chamber. Scott said digging these chambers are not that common, so I was very excited. The consistency of the fungus was different- it was dryer and more brittle to the touch.

We finally got to see our camera trap photos and I cannot believe what we saw. We all lost our minds. WE SAW A PUMA AND A FEW JAGUARS!!!! I know my taxonomic group is ants but man… after seeing the jaguar, we all just screamed with excitement because we couldn’t believe how lucky we were. We also saw a lot of collared peccaries, a rice rat (peck em’ owls), a coatimundi, an armadillo, a tapir, a few curassows, and a coral snake. Our photos were incredible, and it went beyond my wildest imaginations. We also saw a few photos of Adrienne being goofy, which made all of us miss her even more. We miss you Adrienne and we all hope you are feeling well!

Scott just caught a leaf cutter ant male, and it was so long. The ant was probably about 4 cm long, and its abdomen was incredibly thin and long. Since Scott was holding it by its wing, the ant kept curling its abdomen back and forth- it was pretty wild. Since it was out flying, it was on its mating flight, so it’ll probably die today. RIP unexpectedly large male leaf cutter ant.