Tag Archives: Day 3

Coral graveyard and crab shenanigans (09/06/22)

Hi y’all, it’s Liliana again.

I am completely exhausted right now so lets hope that I can write something coherent. We started early again at 6:30, and I hate to say it but waking up that early is becoming more normal. We practiced using our transects and quadrants on land before we formed our research question and went out on the water. This time we stuck to the sea grass and swam through it looking for a specific green algae, penicillus. Each group of two with a total of seven groups swam at least 100 feet out, looking to see how many we could find in a 2×4 area every 10 feet, in the end despite all the ground covered we did not find that many. My group only found two, but we found some other exciting stuff instead like an upside down jelly! And more relevant to my taxon we found a crab next to the upside down jelly, but it was very dead and I didn’t want to get close enough to the jelly to see what the crab was. We wrote our findings and made a group poster and presentation about our mini experiment.

After lunch we went to the coral graveyard, which is great for identifying coral species since you can get a really close look at all the parts and how it looks underneath the living tissue.

After that I got to present my lecture on lionfish/invasive reef species, and my years long mission to eat a lionfish, and I hope that this trip will finally be my chance, since there are many lionfish on this reef that need to be removed.  Today was interesting in terms of crab behavior.

On my way to the bathroom I spotted this hermit crab dragging a small lizard across the ground into a hole.

We also discovered that the hermit crabs like coconut, they’ve been swarming the area where the children were cracking and eating coconuts.

Anyways, it’s time for me to go to sleep, I am exhausted and need all my rest before tomorrow.

Day 3: The most exercise I have had in a long time

Today has been a full day of hiking where we went to set up our camera traps for our research. Let me tell you. If every day is going to be me walking up HUGE hills, I don’t know if I will make it. Observing other taxonomic groups and my group, epiphytes, has made it worthwhile. Oh, and hopefully we will see a jaguar! I can say this whole day of hiking feels like the most exercise I have ever had in my life.

As we were walking towards the top right corner of the 50-hectare plot, this bee would not stop hovering over me! Brendan and Keegan were both there and it was hovering the three of us for a good amount of time. Also, every time I have fallen, Brendan was behind me (at Rio in the pool and our hike today). EVERY TIME. I will keep this in mind on our next hike and hopefully Brendan will not say, “Be careful Michael”.

Along the 50-hectare plot, lots of ferns and mosses were present. These epiphytic plants were found to be on one side of the trees, and it was cool to see that characteristic on multiple trees! Along the monkey tail trail, I saw lichens for the whole 45-minute hike to the end point of our methodology. I could identify more and more species today as we saw more bromeliads, large veins, and lots of lianas hanging from tree to tree.

After the hike back from the monkey tail trail, I took a shower and as soon as I finished, Scott yells, “Scarlet Macaw!!”. I quickly ran to the balcony by lab/dining area and I saw two just chilling up on the trees! Rare site guys, and I can say that life is complete. Hearing the calls that they make; it is just so loud that you cannot miss it. Well that does it for my blog today since I have had a very tiring day. See you tomorrow! CAWWCNAW!!

Picture: Sheer beauty of the Scarlet Macaw.

Day 3: Don’t stop belizin’ until you find some arachnids

5/16/19: I woke at 5:00 o’clock this morning to go birding, and I must say, I was not sure if I would be able to do this. Typically, I am a night owl and late riser, but waking up early was not too bad. The prospect of seeing beautiful birds seem to do the trick in getting me out of bed. And of course, I saw beautiful birds. It is the tropical rain forest we are talking about here!

In addition to some beautiful birding, today we set up the camera traps for our research experiment. Our research question is: Does the clearing for Las Cuevas Research Station impact the species richness and species abundance (i.e overall biodiversity) found near the station? I have never used camera traps before, but it went quite well aside from the fact that four of our cameras were not working. But hey! That’s fieldwork, so we improvised and made it work.  I am hoping that we get an answer to our question—-plus catch a jaguar or puma on camera traps!

On the 50-hectare plot, I saw a Gastercantha cancriformis or Spiny Orb-Weaver Spider.

Today was a spicy day for Arachnids. On the 50-hectare plot, I saw a Gastercantha cancriformis or Spiny Orb-Weaver Spider. It was black, yellow, and white, which was super interesting. It had the characteristic 6 spines and it was spinning a web in the middle of the trail. Also, we did see a spider (unknown) with a grasshopper in its grasp. On a final note, my favorite find of the day was a female wolf spider (genus: Hogna) carrying her egg sack across the trail. She looked so regal with her little children. I also saw my first scorpion and tarantula in the Las Cuevas clearing: a large Florida Bark Scorpion, Centroides gracilis, and a Red-Rumped Tarantula, Brachypelma vagans. Oh…. and…. let’s just say ticks also made an impact today. (Kaela had over 100 ticks!)

Can you spot the wolf spider? Look for the white egg sack and you should find her!
A large Florida Bark Scorpion, Centroides gracilis, found in a sink at Las Cuevas Research Station.

Camera Trap Day

I started the day waking up at 5 in the morning to go birding. It wasn’t as hard to wake up as I thought it would be and I’m glad I did because seeing some of these birds in the morning with the sun coming up is so cool. I definitely want to look more into birding and learning about different types of birds and bird calls once we get back.

 

The main project today was coming up with a question about animals that we could access with the camera traps. We had a long discussion about questions that we had about the Chiquibul forest and mammals found in it and came to the final question: How does the presence of human trails affect mammal abundance, richness, and diversity? Then we set out to put out our camera traps.

While we were at an off-trail site setting up camera traps, Adrienne started yelling about the “mother of all leaf-cutter anthills” and we all hurried to see the giant ant pile which ended up being about 20ft in diameter. Suddenly, someone screamed and we turned around to see a boa constrictor in front of the ant hill. It was about 5ft and seemed threatened because it was pulling back its head and following us when there were sounds or movement. I thought I would have been terrified, but it was actually really cool to see a member of my taxon group that I never would have thought we would see.

After lunch, we finished putting up the last of the camera traps and found some really interesting beetles that no one could identify. Once we got back, I quickly took a cold shower which was a nice way to cool off, and then we heard an amazing lecture from Raphael Montenero, who runs the FCD (Friends for Conservation and Development), who spoke about the Chiquibul forest and how the territorial disputes with Guatemala might cause the forest to be lost. Hearing Raphael speak about his love for the rainforest and passion for saving it and helping Belize was extremely eye-opening.

 

Wait… No One Told Me about the Zombies

Day 3: May 17th 2018    – Las Cuevas Research Station

Today we started with 5:00am bird watching.  We saw several Plumbeous Kite’s, including what appeared to be a mated pair.  We saw several Red-Lored Parrots perching on higher trees with light foliage, a Montezuma oropendola flying into its hanging nest, and a social fly catcher flying about.  After a breakfast of eggs beans and bread, there was a coatimudi spotting, a mammal in the raccoon family. Unfortunately I managed to miss this exciting mammal siting but apparently it was spotted and soon reentered the foliage.

Soon after, we gathered to begin our first project: setting out the camera traps with a question we intend to answer.  We decided to test the effect in human trails on mammal presence, hypothesizing that there would be higher mammal density, abundance, and richness in off trail locations.  To test this, we identified 5 areas at a nearly equal distant radius from Las Cuevas.  We hiked to each area where set one trap facing the path and one about a 7 minute walk off path. Let me tell you, this is where it gets really exciting.  While placing our second location’s second trap, Professor Correa stumbled upon an leaf cutter ant nest that was 20 feet across! What she didn’t notice at first glance was that there was a 5 foot boas constrictor behind her!  Both find would have been extraordinary finds on their own, but I think we’d almost all say that boa constrictor was something no one expect to see this trip.

As we returned to break for lunch, we saw a Plumbeous Kite catch a small rodent, likely a mouse or rat from the grasses. It shared the meal with its mate. After lunch, the rest of the walk was equally exciting with a variety of interesting bees, ants, epiphytes, trees, butterflies and more spotted.  Most notable was the zombie ant we found on the bottom of leaf which has been parasitized by fungi and had walked up a plant to allow the fungi to grow and disperse inside its dead body.  Creepy, but fascinating.  I will admit I almost dismissed the site as particular gross dirt before asking Professor Solomon what it was.

After the hike, we listened to a talk from the director of the FCE which manages the Chiquibul Forest region and its conservation. He spoke about the difficulty in conserving such areas and how few understand the true beauty of the Chiquibul.  He, interestingly, also spoke about the border conflict between Guatemala and Belize, the extent of which was news to a lot of us.  After a dinner of beef, beans, mashed potatoes, and tortillas, we had lectures on Arachnids, Ants, and The Paradox of the Tropical Soil.  Off to bed!