Today we collected our camera traps and we all examined the results later that night. We got some cool photos like a super up close picture of what looked like a puma, skunk, and a tapir! We all had refreshing drinks and a nice desert as a last taste of Belize before all heading down for the night. Man Belize, you got good food. 

We went on an ant hike where Scott told the class all about leaf cutter ants. He showed the class two nests, one young and one mature. The solider ants from the mature ants were so big compared to the workers! Such a cool sighting of Scott in his natural habitat, you know digging up leaf cutter ants. 

Epiphytes were every along both trails as perusal, since epiphytes are so diverse.  It is just a great feeling walking out with the class on the monkey tail trail and just looking around to see epiphytes. Clearly not excited about the 13 ticks I found on me yesterday, but I am alive. 

Last full day here at Las Cuevas Research Station and it is a sad day. One thing I will miss is definitely the food. Food here at Belize is so so good! Thank you Las Cuevas staff for just providing such an amazing experience. Good night and off to the ATM cave in the morning!

Picture: What looks to be a puma

Picture: Tapir!!

Got to see a toucan today even though I woke up late for bird watching. I’m glad I finally got to see a toucan, and I can say I have seen the two most iconic birds here at Las Cuevas. I do feel bad for not actually getting up at 5:00a.m for bird watching, but I tried very hard.

The bird tower hike was very VERY tiring, but once I got to the top of the tower, it was all worth it. The view was such a pretty sight, and the sunset was great as well. Got a couple photos during the golden hour which only lasted for about 10 minuets. That’s nice. The walk back was definitely faster, and it probably would have been faster to take that route.

As we were walking along the shortcut road that leads to the bird tower, I saw more and more lichens. We went down this trail to tackle our afternoon experiment, and along the way I looked for epiphytes, which were everywhere. Bromeliads were everywhere as they usually are and so were these never ending loops of lianas.

After lectures, I just enjoyed the view with Elizabeth, and we talked about the day. We looked at a moth that had she had caught, and she would not playing with him. Before going to bed, I talked to Pierce about how he has an eye of an eagle, and how awesome it is for him to just see lots of things at night. Today was definitely the longest day, but a good one. See you tomorrow as our stay at Las Cuevas winds down L.

Picture: View from the bird tower

Today I woke up at 5:30a.m. to see birds so go me! During the whole hike to retrieve our pitfall traps, it was very cool, and I don’t think I was even sweating during that trip. At lunch today, we had a delicious soup that was full of vegetables and chicken but was very hot! I don’t think I was sweating as much as I did today eating that soup, but it was worth every bite.

Along the hike to retrieve our pitfall trap, I saw bromeliads, lianas, lichens, strangler figs, long roots along trees, and mosses. The lianas that I saw today were called the monkey ladder, in which it looked like a latter, and it stretched the length of the tree. Once again, I saw lichens the whole trip, large bromeliads, and two strangler figs. These plants are just everywhere and everywhere I turn my head, I see epiphytes looking at me.

The frog that was sleeping on leaf was such a thing of beauty. Scott disturbed the sleeping frog by picking him up. I wanted to hole him but I had sunscreen on my hands earlier so I couldn’t hold him. The black-eyed leaf frog then went back to the leaf and we got to see this guy stretch out and it was amazing. He stretched from Scott’s hand to the leaf and it was like a few couple inches!

After the retrieval of I hung out with Keagan and Brendan and we talked about many different things (mostly them telling me lies since I am so gullible). We played ultimate tic-tac-toe and that was fun and just something to kill sometime. Listening to Brendan telling jokes while I was trying to concentrate made the game so memorable. Brendan is seriously funny, and he can really sing his heart out. That does it for today’s blog, catch you guys tomorrow.

Picture: “Sleeping beauty” i.e the morelet’s tree frog

Today I woke up late and missed the bird sighting which was sad since they saw two toucans. As I was enjoying one of the best breakfasts I have had here in Belize, Scott comes in and tells us to take two vials. Then he tells us that we have to pee in these vials without telling us why. We thought he was kidding but nope, we all collected 50mL of our urine, which we found out will be using as pitfall traps for our experiment.

Along the Maya trail and the 50-hectare plot, I saw bromeliads, lianas, lichens, strangler figs, long roots along trees, and mosses. Bromeliads that I saw today were bigger than other bromeliads I have seen yesterday. These tank epiphytes had long leaves and they were filled with water and even some arthropods! The lichens that I have seen today were everywhere and seem to be found everywhere on other plants. It’s pretty great to see epiphytes everywhere you go in the Chiquibul region.

We got to explore the cave that lies underneath a Mayan site here at Las Cuevas. I did almost slip a few times, but I had rocks to grab on to for safety. Today’s lectures were given in the caves and that was a great experience since we were at nature’s natural air conditioning unit. We all sat around on the rocks and listened to the lectures given.

After dinner, we all went on a short night hike and I can say it was an adventure. We saw this cockroach that has this glue-like substance near the rear-end. Very cool and we got to “play” with it. As we were walking towards the pond, Brendan pointed at a stem and told me he thought it was something. It turned out that something was in fact something and that it was a stick bug. It blended in so well it took lots of “work” to see this stick bug, and I got to hold this little guy. And that wraps up this blog. See you guys tomorrow!

Picture: My reaction to nature’s air-condition unit (the cave at Las Cuevas)