Monthly Archives: May 2025

Uncategorized

Day 10: Aquariums, Snorkeling, and Flameback Angelfish

Leave a comment

Hi everyone! Today, I checked “swim with sharks” off my bucket list! We started the day with a morning snorkel out to a patch reef to test our gear and make sure that we remembered how to swim (all good there) and ended with a snorkel at a large reef called “the aquarium” to observe our taxon group. 

I was incredibly excited to get in the water after seeing so many species just from the dock yesterday. While snorkeling, we saw (get ready, this is a long list) a lemon shark, two nurse sharks, 4 species of angelfish (gray, french, flameback, and rock beauty), sea cucumbers, a porcupine pufferfish, 2 manta rays, 1 stingray, 2 rainbow parrotfish, many large groupers, a large predatory jack, and almost every species of coral that you could think of.

It was especially cool to see the angelfish species in the wild after reading so much about them. I thought that the flameback angelfish in particular were very interesting, and I even observed one digging in the sand with its caudal (tail) fin.

Snorkeling

I am very excited to see what we find tomorrow out on the reef. I’ll keep you posted with more fin-tastic updates! That’s all for now! – Elise

Team bonding on the dock
Catching the sunset

I’m very sorry to have not gotten a picture of the fish I saw today! My GoPro was not turning on : (

Uncategorized

Day 9: Marinas, Coconuts, and Nurse Sharks

Leave a comment

Hi everyone! We’ve officially traded our rubber boots for dive fins and headed to Glovers research station near a coral reef! Over the next few days, we will be exploring the surrounding waters and learning about the fish, coral, and algae (and other species) that inhabit them. I am looking forward to identifying angelfish on the reef, which is my next taxonomic focus.

Today began with a bus ride to Belize City. We stopped at a store along the way and ate lunch at a resort near the marina. Around 1 pm, we boarded the boat (I don’t remember its name, but its neighbor was called the Explorer 2). I was a bit nervous about the boat ride earlier today, as I thought that I might get sea sick on the open water. However, I was completely wrong. I loved the boat ride. It was a bit like a roller coaster actually, but with incredible views of as many shades of blue as you can imagine and some surfacing fish.

View from Glover’s dock
Glover’s dock
Middle Caye Island

And the scenery just kept getting better. Arriving at Glovers, I thought that we were passing by a luxury resort. The island is bordered by tall palms with coconuts (we tried climbing one and failed tragically).The dock where we first arrived extends out to a sea grass bed and we saw a nurse shark within minutes of stepping off the boat. Hermit crabs scurry across the sand in every direction and sea birds call from overhead. I can’t wait for our first snorkel tomorrow and for my taxon briefing on angelfish! That’s all for now! – Elise

Uncategorized

Day 11: Uh oh Barracuda!

Leave a comment

Today we started an experiment. We met as a group and decided we would like to know more about parrotfish and what they are actually eating on the reef. We were curious if they just graze on the algae, are taking bites of coral, feeding on grass, etc.. We assigned each group of partners a specific species of surgeonfish to follow around the reef and observe what they’re eating. We did a fish following assay where we chose a fish to follow around and observe for 5 minutes. We started the experiment by visiting the patch reef again. Here Zoe and I looked for stoplight parrotfish and observed them. Among the way we saw a few more sting rays.

In the afternoon we continued our experiment by visiting two more reefs. Zoe and I saw more male parrotfish at this second location which are more blue and colorful than the grey and reddish females. At the third location as soon as we got in the water there were multiple Barracudas. Some looked to be at least 4 ft long. As we were swimming around watching for our parrotfish we noticed that one of them was following us. We swam up to Dr. Evans and he told us that they’re actually attracted to the way Zoe kicks because she produces a lot of bubbles. As we were swimming with Dr. Evans, we came face to face with another Barracuda. We all heard Zoe’s scream underwater. Unfortunately no eel sightings today again. 

Uncategorized

Day 10: Snorkeling

Leave a comment

Hi! Today was our first full day at Glover’s reef! We started the morning by doing some test snorkeling to a nearby patch reef off the dock to make sure everyone’s gear was working. Around the reef we saw so many species of fish and so many other types of organisms. We saw parrotfish, angelfish, surgeonfish, damselfish, and many more. We also saw a southern stingray hanging around the dock. The nurse sharks love to hang around the dock too!

In the afternoon we took a boat out to a spot called the aquarium to look for our taxa. We saw many more fish, a nurse shark, pufferfish, and many more. However we didn’t see any eels. We needed the night watching the sunset as a group and hanging out on the dock by the water!

Uncategorized

Day 11: Redlight! Greenlight!

Leave a comment

May 26, 2025

GRRS Full Day 2

Believe it or not- it was another great day to be a TFB (tropical field biologist!) This morning began with a project regarding parrotfish, which are a subfamily of wrasses! Parrotfish have notoriously mysterious eating habits – we know they eat coral, seagrass, and algae, but recent studies have suggested that they may be eating other things on these large observable things, so we mark down the large observable while missing what they’re actually trying to eat. Our hypothesis: We will find that different parrotfish species will eat different things in the reef. Our method of study: Fish Follow Surveys. This method, as is indicated by the name, is one where a researcher (or in our case, a pair of researchers) follows a fish for a couple minutes and records its activity. My partner, Claire, and I were assigned to the Stoplight Parrotfish. In both the morning and afternoon sessions we conducted our Fish Follow Surveys on many different members of the Stoplight Parrotfish species, with some images below. 

In the evening, in addition to Noelle and Sohee’s presentations on Surgeonfishes and mine on Wrasses, we heard from Kenneth, Manager of GRRS (employed by the Wildlife Conservation Society,) a Marine Biologist from the Belize Fisheries Department, and Chock, a member of the Belize Coast Guard, and we heard about what they do to support the life of Glover’s Reef Atoll and the other rich biodiversity of Belize’s coast. Fun fact: Belize has the largest living coral reef (keyword: living. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia is the largest reef, but it is unfortunately dying) 

I’m excited to compile the FFS data tomorrow with the rest of the class (who all worked on other species of parrotfish) and explore the terrestrial side of an Atoll’s Island.

Images:

Female Stoplight Parrotfish Eating [REDACTED] (see my post tomorrow 🤪) Captured by Claire and I
Uncategorized

Day 9: Arriving at Glover’s Reef!

Leave a comment

We finally got to sleep in today, with a late start of 8:00 AM! We drove back to Belize City to get lunch and get to our boat that would take us to Middle Caye and Glover’s Reef Research Station.

Our dock was behind a casino, which was a bit surprising, but the boat ride was amazing. The initial portion of the trip was super fun, as we sped through the waters.

We saw the ocean turn from a murky green to a clouded dark turquoise to a beautiful vibrant blue. At one point, we couldn’t see any land around us at all!

When we finally left the reef edge, the waters become much more rough and the boat felt like it was being tossed around. At many points it felt like we got a bit of airtime from how high we would get thrown up!

Once we got to Glover’s Reef, it became a lot more calm, but this time with super clear waters filled with hundreds of patch reefs. We even saw a brown pelican repeatedly dive into the water!

Middle Caye itself is beautiful too, and so is the research station itself.

We caught the tail end of the sunset on the dock, which was stunning. Can’t wait to spend the next week here!!

All in all, it was a pretty light travel day. Excited for what the reef has to offer!

Ian C

Uncategorized

5/25 on the hunt for coral

Leave a comment

 

Today we had our first snorkel!! Our morning snorkel was pretty chill. We swam out to the reef patch and just explored and practiced snorkeling. I saw a lizard fish and parrotfish and LOTS of hard corals! After lunch, we took a boat out to this other reef patch called the aquarium for how big and clear the water is. Here I saw a nurse shark, a yellow sting ray, a sea cucumber, hard corals and so many damsel fish. I also saw a large terminal male stoplight parrotfish, which I followed around for a bit. A lot of fish change gender as they age to balance the population, and when they do they can change their appearance to look completely different. Because of this, there are so many variations of what different fish can look like, so it’s hard to ID them. This parrotfish appeared to be eating the coral or scraping algae off if the coral to eat. Parrotfish are known to have very strange diets. They appear to eat anything from coral to algae to rocks. They frequently poop all of this out which actually create most of the “sand” that we see. In the next few days, I definitely want to follow some more parrotfish around to see them eat and poop. Then we went over to another site, where I saw even more hard corals and fish! I think this location by far had the most hard corals. All the locations seemed to have mustard hill coral, branch fire coral, blade fire coral grooved brain coral, finger coral,  possibly massive starlet coral. The last location also had symmetrical brian coral and smooth star coral, although these are difficult to identify for me, so it’s just my best guess.

DSCF1657.jpeg

Uncategorized

Snorkeling with Parrotfish and Soft Corals

Leave a comment

This morning we snorkeled near the patch reefs by Glover’s Reef, kicking off a project on parrotfish diets. Our group split into pairs, with each pair tracking a different parrotfish species. My partner and I were assigned the stoplight parrotfish—easily one of the most colorful fish on the reef.

We visited both a close reef and one further out. At the closer site, we spotted two female stoplight parrotfish grazing on the reef. After lunch, we explored the Aquarium site, where we saw even more parrotfish doing their thing—chomping algae off the rocks like little underwater lawnmowers.

From our observations and video recordings, we noticed that the parrotfish weren’t too picky—they seemed to feed on just about everything in sight. While they’re known for grazing on algae, the ones we watched were also biting at corals and even seagrass. It was surprising to see how actively they scraped at different surfaces, showing just how big of an impact these fish have on shaping the reef environment.

As part of my own focus on soft corals, I kept an eye out for interesting species. I saw purple sea fans swaying with the current, some corky sea fingers, and a few black sea rods—all soft, flexible, and fascinating. It’s wild how different each one looks, even though they’re all in the same group.

Uncategorized

Day 10, GRRS Day One: Fins in the water (… in the sand :)

Leave a comment
May 25, 2025
GRRS First Full Day!
What a great first day we had! We began with an easy morning, just an equipment check and quick swim to the patch reef right off the island from GRRS. I was so excited to get in the water and see my first wrasses! I saw a juvenile Spanish Hogfish during the “fins in the water” swim that morning, but the wrasse sightings didn’t stop there!
In the afternoon, we took a boat ride a ways a way to Long Key (only 10ish minutes, not the 3 hours of the day before.) There, I saw so many wrasses (and took pictures of 38 of them) My favorite ones I saw were the Juvenile Painted Wrasse because it stumped us on the identification process, so it was fun to figure it out, and the adult male Blueheaded Wrasse, because I had done a bunch of research on it, so I was excited to see it in person. It also let me follow it around with my camera without darting away (unlike the Slippery Dick or the Puddingwife) so I got some good pictures. It was super fun to get out and see the reef, even if I got stung by a fire coral (felt like a jellyfish sting, 0.3/10 on the pain scale) in hot pursuit of a juvenile yellowheaded wrasse. Good news: I got the picture!
Overall it was a great day, and I can’t wait for another 4 more here! Can’t believe we’re on day 10 of this amazing experience!
Images:
Juvenile Painted Wrasse
Juvenile Spanish Hogfish
Adult Male Blueheaded Wrasse
Juvenile Yellowheaded Wrasse
Uncategorized

First Dives and Soft Coral Surprises

Leave a comment

Today was all about getting our feet—or fins—wet. We kicked things off with a morning snorkel just off the shore near Glover’s Research Station. It wasn’t meant to be anything too serious—just a chance to try out our gear and adjust to being back in the water. Even though it was a test run, I couldn’t help scanning for signs of soft corals, my assigned group. Spoiler: I found some!

The real show came after lunch when we headed to Long Point, also known as “the aquarium” (for good reason). The water was crystal-clear and the reef felt alive with color and motion. I spent most of my time trailing over the coral beds, and I was thrilled to spot several soft coral species: waving purple sea fans, elegant black sea rods, and the distinct branching shapes of circle sea rods. These corals don’t build the reef like their stony cousins, but they add a ton of texture, color, and motion to the underwater scene.

There’s something mesmerizing about the way soft corals move with the current—almost like underwater plants, except they’re very much animals. I’m excited to keep learning more about them and to see how their presence changes depending on where we snorkel.

Not a bad start for day one. Gear tested, fins working, and soft corals officially spotted.

Screenshot
Screenshot