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Stumbling through the dark, Day 6

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Today we retrieved our vials and performed our largest experiment yet, which involved sorting through specimens and separating them into morphospecies. After presenting our findings to Adrienne and Scott, we realized that there are a ton of ways to analyze data and that we definitely didn’t use the best methods to present our findings. Another day, another learning experience.

After that, we had quite a few lectures lasting into the afternoon. We heard from Lauren, a graduate student that has been living at Las Cuevas since January. She is here trying to answer the question of why carnivores are present in the Chiquibul and thinks that human made trails and roads act as corridors for these species. She’s also one of those people that you instantly admire.

After our lectures, we went out on a night hike. It was quite entertaining. We were seeing insects and arachnids left and right. I could hear Adrienne and Michael screaming and yelling in the dark. We saw a lot of monkey hoppers, a few tarantulas, the largest spider I have ever seen, leaf cutter ants, massive walking sticks, a green caterpillar, and a coral snake (venomous!). Overall it was an exciting hike.

No bees again today, most likely because we were in the classroom all day. But I did set out some scents in a little cup near the forest edge. Maybe I’ll see something tomorrow.

 

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Cave Las Cuevas, Day 5

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Today was interesting. I woke up early to the sounds of the other group that is here. I also did not fall asleep as early as I would have liked because the other group was being loud past 11 pm and I am a light sleeper. So I am kind of grumpy.

Today we wrapped up our trumpet tree projects and then we all peed into two vials. I am impressed by how clear everyone’s urine is. We are a healthy crew. After lunch, we took our helmets and headlamps to the Las Cuevas cave! I’ve been caving before in Idaho as well as Belize. I’ve also been cave diving, which is something I think I much prefer. The added level of danger is quite exciting. Anyway, we met a few bats in the cave and saw a few scorpions. We also encountered a chamber with low oxygen levels, which I definitely felt.

After exiting the caves, we went out onto a trail right near the station and used our urine for an experiment by placing vials of urine and water in trees and on the forest floor. If I haven’t already mentioned, an ancient Mayan site lies right outside the clearing of Las Cuevas. It is believed that the site had been used for ceremonial purposes.

We had a guest lecturer named Boris from FCD, a non-governmental organization that works in this area of Belize. His talk centered on the illegal extraction of resources from the Chiquibul, the research he does, and the social and political conflicts that have arisen from border disputes with Guatemala.

I didn’t see any bees today, probably due to the fact that we spent a large part of the day in the classroom. Tomorrow I will try to attract some bees, if time allows.

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Cave Las Cuevas
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Cave Las Cuevas
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Ant digging, Day 4

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I woke up today to the sound of my alarm and immediately fell back asleep. Instant coffee and sausages helped revive me this morning. We immediately went to the classroom and tried to design experiments that could answer the question as to how young trumpet trees against herbivores because they do not form a symbiosis with Azteca ants until they’re older. We then hit the trails again, though not as intensely as yesterday. We found a line of army ants, discovered a young queen inside a young trumpet tree, and recovered many leaf samples.

After lunch, we stayed in the proximity of Las Cuevas and dug up leaf cutter ant hills. We did so in a way to not kill the queen and allow the colony to recover. We dug vertically down into the soil on the side of the opening of the ant nests until we discovered a chamber containing the fungi and pupae. What’s incredibly neat is that these ants are farmers of the forest. They cut leaves and drag them back to the nest in order to farm this fungus, which can only survive by the aid of these ants. The soldier ants bit Michael, which was pretty funny.

We could hear howling monkeys today. I knew they were farther away than they sounded but I loved listening to them and am hoping we get the chance to see them. The other highlight of my day included seeing the scarlet macaws again. I was inside the building when they flew over and landed in the gutters. I ran over to the bridge between the kitchen and main building to take photos. One of them decided to fly over and pay me a visit. It was AWESOME. I slowly took out my camera and snapped a great photo, which I won’t include here. Find me later in person if you know me and would like to see.

I saw what I believe to be a large bumblebee today, as well as the same little black Euglossini bee. Tomorrow I am setting up my contraption to attract some orchid bees. Right now it is 9:30 pm and I am hitting the hay. I have a 5:30 am wake up call and no desire to get under 8 hours of sleep.

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Fungus that the leaf cutter ants cultivate
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Bootcamp Las Cuevas, Day 3

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I am dead.

I’ve been on some intense hikes in my life, but I doubt I have ever walked as far as I did today, while wearing rubber boots. 13.25 miles in the final count. I do not have blisters. I do not have sunburn. I did not receive any mosquito bites. I can finally join club “I Found a Tick.”  I don’t believe I have ever sweated so much in my life. Today I swam through the slicks of perspiration drenching my body.

I did all of this to set up our 12 camera traps. Hopefully we capture some interesting Belizean animals. Even though I am tired and lying in my bed wanting a good night’s sleep I know I wont get because Mandy snore, I enjoyed my day. After a few miles hiking through the humid forests, I began to acclimate myself to the environment and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the Chiquibul. This is an amazing place for sure. Also, no bees. Sorry.

I am writing a shorter blog than usual but I will be back tomorrow!

P.S. To my family: I am not actually dead. I’m okay. As my mother would say to me “Buck up kid!”

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The 319 crew trekked to each green and red sticky note, accumulating 13.25 miles of hiking.
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Randy is reading out the GPS coordinates of one of our last camera traps.
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Caracol and things that went wrong, Day 2

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The day started bright and early with a cornucopia of fried dough, syrup, and coffee at 6 am. I had only received about five and a half hours of sleep but I did not wake up or stir at all during the night. I found myself sleepy for nearly the entire day, but we get a break tonight to catch up on our sleep.

I saw my first bee today! There were a number of dark bees feeding from the nectar feeders at Crystal Paradise. They appeared to be bees belonging to the tribe Euglossini. The only thing that confused was the fact that they did not appear iridescent or metallic. That is one of the characteristics that define the Euglossini genus. However, it could be entirely possible that these bees belonged to the genus Eufrasia, which is another genus that belongs to the Euglossini tribe. Those bees tend to be darker and black, with any metallic coloring located on their heads. The other distinguishing feature of the Euglossini tribe is the enlarged hind tibias that male bees have to store and carry nectar. I took a few photos that showed exactly this.

After we packed up all of our things, we headed out in our van. I fell asleep instantaneously and missed most of the drive. I only woke up a few times and was lucky that I got to see a coati walking along the road. We arrived at Caracol, an ancient Mayan archaeological site, and headed out to the ruins. We climbed the tallest man-made structure in Belize, and it was built about 1500 years ago! Everyone was sweating a lot under the hot sun and the strong humidity. That was when I noticed these tiny little black insects hovering around and landing on people’s skin. When I got a closer look, I saw that they were sweat bees. Sweat bees belong to the Halictidae family and are attracted to human perspiration. The ones I saw were also very tiny, but very distinctly bee.

After we ate lunch at the ruins, we packed up the van yet again with the plan of going swimming in some pools. Of course, this was never meant to happen. Our van broke down and we had to be rescued by those residing at Las Cuevas. We packed our people and gear onto two pickup trucks and endured a bumpy 45-minute ride to the research station. Upon arrival, I was immersed in the sounds of the forest. Currently I am writing this blog outside on the porch as we wait for dinner and am listening to the myriad bird sounds emanating from the trees. I may be dirty, but I am content.

I can’t promise any photos. Cross your fingers that the Ethernet will load them!

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A black species of Euglossini bee. Taken at Crystal Paradise.
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Africanized honey bees
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Caracol
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The 319 crew minus Scott at Caracol. PC: Scott Solomon
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Hungry and sad, Day 1

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Today I felt helpless as I stared into the eyes of the cashier at Subway, as she told me they weren’t making or selling sandwiches. I had skipped breakfast that morning thinking I would grab a large lunch at the airport but when we arrived at Hobby, we learned that the water had shut off. Consequently, all the restaurants could no longer serve food, as not washing hands was a health code violation. Alas, I settled on two bags of potato chips and entertained myself at Subway for half an hour watching hangry passengers walk up to the Subway cashier only to be told the horrifying news.

While I was hangry today in the airport, it largely didn’t bother me too much. I think over the years I have come to accept the not-so-great things that happen to me because there is no sense in working myself up over something I have no ability to change. Plus, I was about to board a plane to Belize! As I expected, it was quite humid and warm as we descended from the aircraft onto Belizean territory. Once we went through customs and left the airport, we all boarded ourselves into a van and made a two-hour trek to Crystal Paradise, a hotel outside of San Ignacio near the Guatemalan border.

Dinner tasted particularly wonderful and right afterword, Mandy, Sasha, and Sam gave their presentations. While I tried to stay interested, I must say that I was exhausted and it took a lot for me to keep my eyes open. We were released for bed at 11 pm. I ran back to my room but was stopped by Lucrecia and Ella. They had found a trail of leafcutter ants outside of our rooms!

I ran inside to grab my camera and headlamp and we all proceeded to follow the ant trail to find its nest. My friend Mandy loudly exclaimed that the ant trail looked like an actual trail, and indeed, the ants had been travelling back and forth so many times that there was a clear path cut through the understory. I was amazed at how everything was kept so orderly. A two-way direction of ants travelled back and forth from one place to another. We found the nest at the base of some small palm tree. After we found this, we wanted to find the “home tree” or the place the ants were collecting these leaves. We followed the trail backwards and found the tree. It was pretty far away as far as ants are concerned. Needless to say, the ants captured my attention tonight and were cool enough to keep a sleep-deprived person like myself from collapsing into bed.

Sadly, I saw no bees today but I am not worried since it is only our first day. Other creatures we saw today included a dog that Adrienne mistook for a deer, a few chickens, a large cicada that joined us for dinner, and a cockroach that scared the bejesus out of Adrienne. Photos of the ant parade are below!

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Pumped for Belize

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Tomorrow I will be fulfilling the promise I made to myself a little less than two years ago by going back to Belize. After my first experience in Belize, I am more than excited to return solely for the purpose of studying the country’s biodiversity, especially its coral reefs.

Experience is the greatest teacher and I am prepared to go into this trip with an enthusiastic mindset in order to come away with a greater understanding of the tropics. This lab course is the result of a culmination of many months of preparation and reading. I purposefully chose to take EBIO 213 and Coral Reef Ecosystems this past spring semester, and also chose stony corals and bleaching as my topics for lectures, in order to glean as much as I could this semester.

I have several goals: attract an orchid bee, find an Acropora palmata or Acropora cervicornis, and identify at least seven different species of stony corals correctly. The only thing that makes me nervous is the bugs. I know they are there, just waiting to bite me. That is one of the reasons I love the ocean. No bugs. I am most excited to stay at Glover’s Reef.

My experience in the tropics is minimal I would say. I’ve been to Hawaii, Belize, and the Bahamas. In every location I have sustained numerous, if not catastrophic, amounts of bug bites. This time I am armed with hydrocortisone. The good news is that I love humidity and can adapt fairly easily to hot and muggy conditions.

I am so excited for this trip and I hope to soak up information like a sponge! Get it 😉

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Photo by moi. Jun 9, 2014.

Here is the sea turtle I met from my first visit!