Monthly Archives: May 2016

2016

Day 8: A sad day

Leave a comment

DSCN1882

We left Las Cuevas today. I wasn’t ready to this place. I spent the morning talking to Lauren the grad student and Bill the professor from the University of Florida, asking them about the equipment that they use and brainstorming ideas to improve the technology. I’ve decided that I’m going to ask my academic advisor if I can work with them as for a senior design project. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to see this place again. Our transportation was really, really late. So that gave us an extra couple of hours at the station.

We spent most of the day on the road in the bus. Today was probably one of the least exciting days. Because the bus driver was so late we didn’t get to visit the ATM caves. I’m slightly disappointed, everyone seems to think it’s an awesome visit.

In the afternoon, we arrived at the Belize Zoo lodge and had dinner. After dark we got a special night tour of the zoo. We saw all of their nocturnal animals including: a Black Jaguar, a Spotted Jaguar, an Ocelot, a Margay, some owls and crocs, and a Tapir. The zoo tour was a lot more exciting than I was expecting. I can’t remember the last time I went the a zoo to see animals.

-Randy

2016

Day 7: Oh my gosh a cat

Leave a comment

DSCN1887 DSCN1893

The people from the other school caught two birds in the morning. One was a Slaty Antwren and the other was possibly a Red Throated Ant-Tanager. Both were very pretty birds.

After breakfast we went out and collected our camera traps. We did the whole 13 mile hike again, and like Scott and Adrienne promised, the second time around was much easier. After lectures, we opened up our camera traps and looked at the images they captured. In the beginning, everyone was super hopeful. There was a small bird that appeared on two close locations. And a Great Curassow on another. Other than that we just caught a lot of pictures of the other group that is here. People. Some more people. We were becoming less and less optimistic. But alas, on one of the last few traps we managed to get a picture of Tapir, which is extremely rare and endangered. Scott seemed really happy. On the last trap, which was mine, there were pictures of an Agouti and an Ocelot. That was really awesome. Scott confessed that he didn’t think the spot I picked was going to yield any good pictures. So i was pretty happy to prove him wrong.

Almost forgot. On the way to collect the traps we actually caught a glimpse of a Great Curassow on the Monkey Tail Trail. it was a lot bigger than I was expecting. All in all, pretty awesome day. Saw some cool birds, got an elusive cat picture. And of course, we got a picture of an endangered animal. How great is that?!

–Randy

2016

Day 6: Birds getting it on

Leave a comment

There were Plumbeous Kites mating on the tree in front of the main building this morning. It was kind of interesting to watch the ordeal. The male performed a mating dance where it would stand face to face with the female bird and spread its wings. When the started mating the female would actually hang upside down on the branch.

After breakfast we went out to collect our urine traps and counted the number of types of insects there were in the vials. We created some posters and presented our finding.

In the evening we had a guest lecture from Lauren the grad student that’s been here for 9 months. It was very interesting to hear about her research and perspective on being here. I was especially interested in the technology that she used to conduct her research. I tried to come with a couple of different ideas in my head that would potentially help her with her research, specially the data collection and or implementing machine learning in her data processing process. I thought about potentially using her camera trap stations themselves as a communication network and relay the images between stations and eventually onto her computer. I thought about maybe applying image recognition algorithms to help her sort false triggers from images that actually have animals in them. Maybe this could turn into a senior design project. We’ll just have to see.

DSCN1868 DSCN1892

After the talk we went on a night hike and saw some pretty amazing stuff. We found an interesting species of cockroach that can hiss and spray a sticky substance. There were a bunch of really larger spiders. But the thing that was the most exciting for me was at the end of the hike we found a mother Pauraque nesting on 2 eggs. That really made my night.

-Randy

Uncategorized

Belize zoo

Leave a comment

Today we experienced some unforeseen vehicular complications but we all came our the other side as weathered tfb’s (tropical field biologists). We’re spending the night at this beautiful lodge right next to the Belize zoo. Last night we were taken on a night tour of the zoo to see all the nocturnal animals at their most active. This meant jaguars, a puma, an ocelot, a margay, paca, and a tapir. It was truly incredible, I feel very lucky to have gotten to get so close to these beautiful big-cats. The jaguars have huge heads to crush their prey’s skull, but you can’t appreciate how big and powerful they are until they’re right in front of you. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Tomorrow we make our way out to Glovers reef! Soon I will be updating you on annelids rather than amphibians (still no more of those by the way). If you are curious as to what those are, I’d look up christmas tree worms and social feather dusters. Those are my favorites and they are not at all what you would expect worms to look like, they’re actually quite beautiful.

DSCN2635 (1)

DSCN2664 (1)

DSCN2643 (1)

DSCN2639 (1)

Sophia Streeter

5-24

Uncategorized

Last day in the Chiquibul

Leave a comment

We finished out the last day with another 13 mile hike to pick up all our camera traps. It took us about half the time it did on Thursday and I wasn’t nearly as tired. It’s amazing what your body can adjust to after just a few days. Even though I’m running on less sleep I feel great because of all the exercise and activity.

Checking the photos from camera traps was more exciting than you could possibly imagine. Most of it was nothing but when something popped up on screen we were elated. One of our cameras got a picture of a Tapir (!!!!) and another of an Ocelot (!!!!). Even though we only had a little taste of it I think I am starting to understand how difficult field work can be, but also how rewarding. I will miss the rainforest and all of its colors and scents and noises.

Even though we didn’t see many amphibians out here I didn’t feel too disappointed or bored because it meant I got to bounce around and look at everyone else’s taxonomic groups. The end of the dry season can be tough for herpetology but getting to watch birds, ants, mammals (I saw an agouti this morning), reptiles, and insects made up for it. Not to mention the plants! The diversity was incredible and I saw many more organisms than I was expecting.

DSCN0880 (1)

DSCN2527 (1)

DSCN0415

Sophia Streeter

5-23

Happy birthday Mom! You too Elena, sorry I missed them.

Uncategorized

Night Hike

Leave a comment

Today we learned a valuable lesson in analyzing data. Statistics can help or hinder you and you must consider your question carefully to decide what kind of analysis to use. Different tests can give you different results, so you must be careful in considering your community and think about what will give you the most scientifically meaningful results.

After several lectures we took a short night hike and found spiders, cockroaches, insects and some people even saw a coral snake. The dry season has been particularly harsh and there is not much moisture, so I didn’t see any amphibians last night. They are probably hiding deep in the forest under the leaf litter or in other damp places.

Sophia Streeter

5-22

Uncategorized

Caves and Pitfalls

Leave a comment

Life in the canopy is very different from life on the forest floor. There are differences in water, sunlight, vegetation, other organisms, the affects of gravity and access to food and nutrition. Nitrogen is an important nutrient and decomposers on the forest floor are essential parts of the nitrogen cycle. With this in mind we hypothesized that the forest floor would be more nitrogen rich than the canopy. Specifically, that arthropods in the canopy are more nitrogen limited. We tested this using pitfall traps both in the trees and in the ground. We used control traps filled with water and traps full of nitrogen-rich liquid (our own urine). Tomorrow when we collect the traps we expect to find more arthropods in the urine filled traps, and more arthropods in the tree traps than the ground traps.

This afternoon we went spelunking in a cave at Las Cuevas that was used as a ceremonial chamber by the ancient Mayans. The Mayans believed that caves were entrances to the underworld and that at the end of the day the sun turned into a jaguar and entered hell through a cave to battle demons all night until it reached the other side. This cave had nine bottlenecks that represented the nine layers of a hell a Mayan hero fought through in their mythology. We belly-crawled through the mud-guano cave floor to several hard to reach spots. There are many Mayan artifacts in the cave and areas are still being excavated by archaeologists. We found a lot of pottery, but also a human femur and an animal skeleton. Most excitingly, we saw wrinkle-faced bats roosting. Other animal sightings included glow worms and whip scorpions. Of course the formations are almost alive themselves, with huge chambers swallowing you up.

I have been searching for amphibians in damp areas like the cave entrance and inside bromeliads but I haven’t had any luck today. The leaf litter can also shelter cryptic amphibians, like toads, but I haven’t found any so far.

DSCN2573

Sophia Streeter

5/21

Uncategorized

Ant Day

Leave a comment

Today we focused on some of the many ant species that habitate the Chiquibul forest. The cecropia tree has a symbiosis with azteca ants, which protect the tree from predators in exchange for shelter and food. We spent the morning testing a few hypothesis about how the cecropia trees avoid herbivores before they are colonized by the protector ants. 

This afternoon we excavated three leaf cutter ant colonies of different maturities. Once a queen colonizes a nest after a nuptial flight she can live for 20 years reproducing, expanding the colony until there are millions of ants at any given time. There are tunnels underground leading to chambers full of the ant’s fungus garden and pupae. The youngest ones are fairly small, but once they are 10 years old they get huge, with tunnels the width of your arm full of soldier ants ready to come out and attack you when you disturb them. They have quite a pinch and we were all thankful for our rubber boots today.

We had an unexpected amphibian sighting once we got back to our housing; one of the bedrooms had a large frog on a bedpost. I caught it and took it outside to get a closer look and try to identify it. It hiccuped in my hand, puffing out its chest, in protest to its capture. The frog was dark green and brown, with some stripy markings around the forelegs. I couldn’t examine its back without it jumping from my hands so I didn’t get a clear look. It was about 2.5 inches long with horizontal pupils, bronze irises and toe pads. The toe pads indicate that its a treefrog and since there aren’t many in the area I would have to guess that it was another common Mexican treefrog, based on size and color. I released it into the trees after a minute or two to not cause it too much distressed and it leapt from my hands with a defiant squeak.

Digging leaf cutter ant nest

Sophia Streeter

5-20

Uncategorized

Missed Adventures, Day 8

Leave a comment

By now I am sure you’ve read everyone else’s blog posts and know that we didn’t get to go to the ATM cave yesterday because our van was five hours late. Since we run on group time (meaning we are always never on time), I figured today that we definitely wouldn’t be leaving at 7am. Time passed by and then we learned that they would pick us up at 11am. So we took another tour around Las Cuevas and got back and listened to another taxonomic briefing. Then I went and rinsed off in the shower, which puzzled a lot of people because we were supposed to go caving that day. But somewhere deep inside I figured the clock had time out and we probably wouldn’t be going to the cave.

And I was right. Everything got mixed up but in the end I enjoyed a nice glass of iced chocolate milk and bought a lot of snacks. We arrived at our lodging for the night and proceeded to our night tour at the zoo. I’ve been to this zoo before during the day and loved it. We met Indy the tapir. I must say I thought his penis was another foot, and then I realized that it is actually that large. I’ve met Lucky Boy the black jaguar before and things don’t really change. We saw the ocelot, who was pretty irritable and I guess you could say he was growling and starting making “nom nom nom” sounds as he ate his strips of meat. We also met some pacas (adorable) another jaguar, some owls, and a margay. I was also attacked by a wasp during the tour and it crawled down my shirt and stung me. I killed it of course and squashed it in my panic and shook out my shirt. I can say that I am a little traumatized.

No bees today! Most likely because we were driving around all day. We leave for the reef tomorrow. Super excited!

DSCN3548
We had to wait in our van for 45 minutes while our tour guides, Adrienne and Scott, and the van driver talked out what we were going to do since we were five hours late. Meanwhile we were contemplating what we were going to do if the driver actually kicked us out!
Uncategorized

Camera Traps

Leave a comment

Our 13 mile hike in the rainforest, up and down hills, was the most physically exerting thing I’ve done in a long while, but it left me full of endorphins and with pleasantly sore muscles. We hiked all this way to set up 12 camera traps that will take pictures every time they detect movement over the next 5 days, until we collect them again. Hopefully this will let us see some of the more shy animals of the rainforest. We also found several interesting insects, spiders, and birds over the course of the day.

Amphibian update: we found some tadpoles in the muddy reservoir left by a car tire. Not an ideal spot but the dry season is coming to an end and there aren’t many options left for frogs and toads in the area, who need water to reproduce. More excitingly, I saw my first treefrog of the trip this afternoon. Adrienne masterfully caught it and held onto it long enough for me to snap a picture and identify it. After some consideration we positively identified it as a Common Mexican treefrog. It was large, at least 2.5 inches, and a shade of grey with green tinges. Once we were able to see its back, its species was obvious. It had the telltale darker splotches on a grey-brown body. At first its dark-eye patch threw me off but amphibians can be highly variable in coloration within a population and aren’t always a reliable form of identification.

Map of Las Cuevas

Mexican Treefrog

Sophia Streeter

5-19