Tag Archives: Mud turtles

2022

Trapping a Jaguar!!! (On camera, hopefully) (Day 10)

Leave a comment

Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 10 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we woke up extra early (mostly on accident) to birdwatch from Las Cuevas Deck! We didn’t see any macaws, but we saw two- four toucans flying across the sky. They were gorgeous!

Then we went to plan out next research project. For our question, we chose “which area (trails, jungle, roads) will each animal group (large predators, small predators, large prey, small prey) use the most measured by relative abundance?” Our hypothesis was that big cats would be the dominant animals using paths and roads whereas small prey and mammals would stay under forest cover. We planned on using trap-cameras to get photos of animals as they cross the trails. By the way, while we were planning, we saw 4 scarlet macaws flying around!

Then we set off to se tho the cameras. Our first trip out we ran into our first of three white lipped turtles (Kinosternon leucostomum). This one was easy to identify because of its white lip, it looked just like one of the ones on my taxa sheet, and we found it swimming in a muddy puddle after the morning rains. After we saw the turtle, I set up my first camera on the “shortcut path” back to Las Cuevas. Because I went first, I was deemed the “camera soldier” and had to fix/ mess with lots of peoples cameras.

We did so much in this hike: set up cameras, use gps markers, walk through the jungle, eat termites, climb a bird tower, trip on Mayan stairs, see huge cave spiders, the list is endless.

I didn’t see my taxa again until after a light evening rain, and they were two mud turtles swimming around in mud puddles. I’m finding that these turtles vary greatly in shell appearance and patterning. The last two turtles lacked the classic white lip coloring, which caused me to misidentify them at first. However, their “bridge shell pattern” between the carapace and bottom shell indicated their true species. Plus, they were found in the same environment as the other white lipped mud turtle!

I’m hoping to see other types of mud turtles, like the Tabasco turtle. The wet season is proving to be good for turtle hunting but bad for reptiles and snakes. I’ll let you know what we see next!

Til’ Tomorrow!

QOTD:

“ if you leave me I’m signing up for an online orphanage”

Giant Cave Spiders
The view at Las Cuevas
One of the three white-lipped mud turtles! (Generously picked up by Caio)
Scarlett Macaw!

 

 

2022

The Ruins of Caracol!!! (Day 9)

Leave a comment

Hi all, it’s Faith with Day 9 updates from the 2022 Belize trip!!!

Today we left the TEC to visit Caracol, one of the largest Mayan cities. I got kind of car sick on the way there, but it was OK because we sighted a Morelet’s crocodile (crocodylus moreleti). While I couldn’t get the exact size, it was obviously a younger crocodile. It even had the black tail bands that characterize young morelet’s. We saw it sunbathing on a rock near a freshwater river in the Chiquibil. What an exciting find!

After that, I fell asleep and awoke at Caracol. This ancient Mayan city was home to over 200k people at one point and spans over 7 miles. The temples are in a pyramidal shape and come in groups of threes and sixes. The property had a wide variety of trees. One of them produces fruit that are locally called horse balls, and the fruit have a sticky glue-like sap. We also saw a gumbo limbo tree wrapped in a strangling fig. The last cool tree we saw was a Ceiba tree. They can live for over 200 years, and they dominate the emergent layer of the rainforest (highest portion of the canopy). We all looked so small compared to the twin ceiba trees! The highlight of Caracol, for me at least, was seeing a bat! I love bats, so I was the first and last person out of the Mayan cave-room! He was so small (pictured below)!

After Caracol we made the 2 hour drive to Las Cuevas research center. On the way it began to rain, and the gravelly- dirt roads became faint puddles. In those puddles, we saw three turtles! One I identified as a red cheeked mud turtle (K. scorpiodes). I determined his species by noting his habitat and appearance.  I even saw a glimpse of his bright red cheeks! Because of the speed we passed them with and their small sizes, I wasn’t able to identify the other two turtles we passed. They were also living their best life in road ponds. I also couldn’t get pictures of these turtles because of the moving car 🙁

Las Cuevas seems cool for now, but I guess I have all week to figure that out. I’ll let you know what happens next!

Till Tomorrow!

QOTD

““You guys are gonna make me touch the horse balls?”

“Micheal pees! How could he?”

This is the site we saw a morelet’s crocodile! It is in this picture I will add a close up of the crocodile once I receive is from Dr. Solomon
The Giant Ceiba Tree!
THE BAT!!!
Morelet’s crocodile sunbathing!
Uncategorized

Day 5: Creatures in the Night

Leave a comment

Today started off with a spirited morning hike that was less than successful for me in my mission to catch a blue morpho. Sad. But, Elena did spot a helmeted iguana casually clinging to the side of a mossy tree! He/she/it was so cute, with little red eyes that casually watched us as the 12 of us bumbling humans oohed and aahed as only true TFBs can.

Helmeted iguana

Adrienne also spent the whole morning peeling bark off dead trees to look for scorpions and finally managed to find a couple hiding out in a lichen-covered log! I also snagged three butterflies in my net as we headed back to camp. Two were small orange and yellow sulfur butterflies, but one was a large golden butterfly that I’d never seen before. I found all three floating in the lower branches of understory brush.

Today marked the completion of our first full project. Belize is a tiny country flush against the ocean, making it vulnerable to hurricanes that periodically sweep through the country and flatten areas of the forest. Two years ago, Hurricane Earl was no exception.

Our project today aimed to understand the effects of these areas of hurricane-caused tree fall on the regrowth of understory plants. Since every tree that falls exposes a rare patch of sunlight on the forest floor, we thought that maybe there would be more plants growing in the fallen areas to suck up all the sunlight!

Unfortunately, we didn’t actually find any real difference in plant growth between fallen and non-fallen areas. It’s probably because all 10 of us are fools when it comes to identifying leaves – maybe we’ll have better luck once we actually learn how to identify plants.

After an afternoon of making a poster to display our non-data and listening to lectures, we ate dinner and headed out for the first night hike. We stopped by the frog pond, which is usually dry at this time of year, but to our happy surprise, there were actually a few inches of muddy water and dead leaves in the pond! The water teemed with tiny turtles. Scott picked one up, but it didn’t seem to be too happy so we let it go soon after. I caught an anole with an orange scale pattern on its back near the edge of the lake. He was also quite angry with me, so I let him go after he flashed his red neck flap a few times.

Here’s one of the mud turtles!

Can’t really see the anole in this pic, but he’s there, I promise! Also, don’t I kind of look like Jane Goodall? #goals

Overall, the night hike was filled with creepy crawlies of the night – plenty of katydids, one banded gecko, and a super strange gray moth that, when we lifted its wings, turned out to have a bright orange and black-striped furry body. It was resting on a broad leaf hanging into the trail and wasn’t even remotely disturbed by the annoying humans prodding at it.  Sadly, I couldn’t get a great photo of it because the lighting was so dim.

The Lepidoptera front was otherwise quiet today because we spent so much time inside on the poster, and butterflies didn’t seem to like the hurricane fall areas.

Tomorrow, we collect our pee traps. Yay!