All posts by sk283

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Day 6: Breathtaking View (literally….)

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Hi Blog,

Today was a very exciting day! The day, as always, started off with a delicious breakfast from Angie! Apparently, there were a family of howler monkeys in the tree at the edge of the clearing that a bunch of people got to see, but I did not, which I’m a little sad about. But I did get to see some in the Caracol on day 2 which was cool.

After breakfast, we went to the Chiquibul cave, which was super cool! Surprisingly, the cave entrance was directly outside of clearing, so it was a very short walk. The entrance was much wider than I expected, and walking into the cave and actually being in the cave was so surreal. It was significantly cooler (literally and figuratively), and the cave was hazy, which added to the surreal effect.

Pre-caving photo!

It was really cool to see the geologic formations, especially since the baby stalagmite appeared sticky, which is apparently calcium! I thought it was interesting how the tour guide pointed out to not touch the geologic formations, since the human imprint will stop the growth of the geologic formations. It made me aware of the disruptive effects that humans can have, even if the actions seem really minuscule.

Although I did not directly have any mammal sightings, I was still able to see holes in the ceiling of the cave, which the KARST team explained were the roosting sites of the various species of bats in the area! No picture, since we were not allowed  to take any photographs within the caves in order to minimizing looting risks.

After the cave, we went on a hike to collect our pitfall trap samples, which was done quite efficiently since we had been on the paths before and had annotated thoroughly in our field notebooks of their locations. Then, we had lunch which was chicken, rice and beans, and plantains. These were yummy as usual! After lunch, we went right back to work to analyze our pitfall trap samples and then present to Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon immediately after. My vial for the ground sample had a huge cockroach on it, which was effectively identified by Emily.

We went hiking to the bird tower to catch the sunset, and the view was absolutely breathtaking. The journey there was breathtaking as well (literally), but I digress… The tower and ladder were a little shaky though which was kind of scary… I was physically exhausted and drenched in sweat, but I was so glad to have persevered.

At the bird tower!

After we returned, we had dinner — chick peas, fried cucumbers, and eggs. After dinner, I finally had my first presentation, which was my 30 minute topic lecture about Visual and Auditory Communication in Rainforest Animals. I was a little nervous, since this was the longest presentation I have ever done, but I think it went fairly well, and I’m glad to have it out of the way. I have my mammals taxon ID briefing presentation tomorrow though, so I’m excited/nervous for that.

Tomorrow morning, at 5 AM, a small group of us are planning to go to the bird tower to see the sunset. I’m going to try really hard to wake up, but we will have to see tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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Day 4 (5/19) : Pitfall Traps, Ants, Trees, Tarantulas!

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Hi Blog,

Unfortunately, my day did not start extra early for the birding, but I’m hoping one of these days I will get a chance to join the bird watching.

Like always, we had breakfast at 7 AM, and then gathered shortly after to have a class discussion on our next research project. Also, during our class discussion, we were greeted with a friend — a scorpion in the drawers (we named it Sean)!

Sean the Scorpion!

The morning’s project was about  investigating the nitrogen limitation between the forest floor and the canopy and its impact on forest invertebrates. Since it is the end of the dry season, adn leaflitter accumulation on the forest floor are at its maximum, we hypothesized that the nitrogen levels would be much higher in the forest floor as opposed to the canopy.

Class discussion!

We each set up four pitfall traps — one pair on the ground and one pair on the tree trunk. Each pair consisted of a water vial and a nitrogen source vial, with the nitrogen source being… urine. Putting the traps in the ground looked easy at first, but once we actually got to digging, I realized it was much more difficult in reality just because of the sheer number of small roots surrounding the tree roots.

In addition to setting up our pitfall traps, we also saw other cool things along the way. For example, we saw an insect with huge eyes eating another insect! The bug being eaten was twitching, so I felt bad, but I suppose it is the cycle of nature. We also saw a super giant ant crawling on the forest floor!

In the afternoon, we went back to adventuring in order to investigate the relationship between cecropia trees and ants. In order to investigate this plant/ant interaction, we not only collected two leaves from two different trees (one colonized and one uncolonized), but we also captured 6 different herbivore invertebrates in plastic containers. As a little side quest, we also captured around 10 beetles, put them in a box, and set up our version of Hunger Games. I’m excited to see who will be the final and sole survivor, because one of the beetles had already started munching on one of the nymphs we had caught.

To examine the plant/ant interaction, Dr. Solomon, with his iconic machete, chopped down a colonized cecropia tree. It was amazing to see the countless chambers all along the tree and the swarm of ants that came out in order to defend their tree. It was so interesting to think about how all of these ants were living towards the top of the cecropia tree.

Cecropia tree and ants!

No direct sighting of rainforest mammals today, but many days lie ahead to spot them! I am hopeful that I will be able to see (and photograph) some of them tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we will analyze the results of this experiment, and I’m excited to see the results!

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Day 3: Project and… Bats?

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Hi Blog,

Today was day 3 of Belize, and our first morning at Las Cuevas Research Station! I didn’t get to hear it, but apparently some people were woken up at around 4 AM due to a calling from an ocelot! I wish I heard it, because I’ve been dying to see one of the cat species!! After breakfast, we devised a game plan for our first research project, with the research question of “how does the presence of manmade trails affect the biodiversity of vertebrates in the Chiquibul forest immediately surrounding Las Cuevas Research Station?”

For our research, the rest of our day consisted of setting up 14 camera traps — 7 on disturbed and 7 on undisturbed locations. For the undisturbed locations, Dr. Solomon took the lead with his machete cutting down any trees, vines, or other plants that were in the way as we walked into the forest. I got to place mine in the undisturbed portion of the forest which was a cool experience! In the following days, I think we will be observing what is captured on the camera traps to answer our research question.

Me setting up my camera trap!

Today was actually a day full of mammal sightings!!

At the beginning of our hike down the Monkey Tail Trail, around 10 AM, we discovered a big cat scratch mark on the ground — perhaps of a jaguarundi, jaguar, oicelot, or puma. It looked fairly recent based on how there were only a couple of leaves on top of the cleared dirt. Also, Dr. Solomon caught a distinct whiff of an animal — again possibly of a feline species. This was really exciting for me, because it made me realize that the cat species are actually in the forests with us, rather than being just a distant idea.

Around 10:50 AM, Dr. Evans spotted pinch marks from Honduran white bats! This was really interesting, as it was sets of evenly spaced holes/marks in a 10-leaved plant. We suspected it may have been from a family of these bats, based on how many of the marks were on the leaves.

 

Honduran White Bat pinch marks!

Then, right before dinner at around 6PM, we saw two agoutis lurking around the trees of the clearing, and it looked like hey were foraging around for food. I was at first confused on if it was a paca or an agouti, but then identified as an agouti after seeing that it was uniformly colored. It was so far away though that my camera could not capture it without it looking like a speck of dust. So sadly, no agouti pictures taken by me are available. 🙁

I’m really excited to see what the following days at the rainforest will look like as Day 1 at LCRS (Las Cuevas Research Station) has already been so informative and awesome!

With love,

Sohee

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Day 2: Caracol & Las Cuevas

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Hi Blog!

Today was Day 2 of Belize. Our morning started at 6:30 AM for breakfast, then we left around 7:30 AM from Crystal Eco Lodge. It was such a cozy and pretty place to stay at, and I hope I can return and stay for a longer duration in the future. Our bus rides were filled with unexpected surprises!

First, on our way to Caracol, we saw not only saw a dead green snake on the side of the road but a cashew nut tree. Before this, I did not know that cashew nuts had fruits attached to them, and that the skin of the fruit contained the same chemical as a poison ivy.

Then, on our way from Caracol to Las Cuevas Research Station, we saw first a Toucan, then once we looked closer, we also saw several Black Howler Monkeys on the trees! There were like 4~5 howler monkeys resting on different branches of the same tree, with even a baby monkey that was hanging off the branch with its tail! It was really cool to see the prehensile tails of these howler monkeys in action! While the baby was playfully hanging off the branch, the other howler monkeys looked like they were enjoying a peaceful nap, as they were draped over the branches and were still for the most part.

Can you spot the howler monkey?

This was especially exciting, since my taxon of primary focus is rainforest mammals, and I had read up all about them! They, like their name, howl to communicate. And their howling abilities are due to the hollow bone in their neck that allows them to produce physical howling sounds!

Our actual Caracol tour was amazing as well. It was so eye opening to see the remnants of the Maya civilization, such as their dwelling and temples. Climibing the many flights of stairs to reach the top of the temple was pretty exhausting, but the view was so worth it at the end! We saw a baby fox in the bricks of the temple, and witnessed it proudly carrying a leaf back to its den. Also, we saw Montezuma Oropendola — the dark colored bird with a bright yellow tail. It was really intriguing to see that their nests were shaped liked baskets hanging from a tree — and there were so many of the nests nearby (in the same tree) to each other.

Caracol ruins!
Baby gray fox spotting!

Tomorrow, we are going to have our first “big project” which I am intrigued to learn about in the morning.

 

 

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Day 1: Travel to Belize

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Hi Blog!

Today was Day 1 of Belize and it was so much fun!! It was a LONG day for sure, since our class met up at 6 AM and it is now 12 AM. I think we arrived in Belize around 12 PM in Belizean time, and when we got out of the airport it was around 1:30 PM. We got on a bus to head to our resort, and on our way, we had a couple exciting stops!

First, we stopped at Cheers for lunch, where the food took a bit to come out but it was such a cute place. There were old t-shirts hanging from the ceiling from different groups that have visited the restaurant over the years, and outside, there was a little playground and a small body of water. This was super cool because we saw iguanas in the trees, and they were jumping into the water — although my reaction time was too slow for me to catch them in action on my camera.

Then, on our way to a supermarket, apparently there was a roadkill Tamandua Anteater on the road, but I didn’t get to see it. Hopefully we can spot another one soon (alive as a bonus— fingers crossed), or even a Giant Anteater! I also saw many horses and cows on the way. Many of them were just grazing on the pasture, but I also saw a couple of horses just stationed outside of a family dwelling.

I really enjoyed the ride because the views were very scenic, and I loved the differences in geography and architecture. All of the brightly colored houses coupled with the mountainous landscape and blue sky were surreal.

Vibrantly-colored Belizean houses!

When we got to our resort, we were greeted with two very friendly dogs — my first actual mammal interaction in Belize! They loved pats and rubs, and one of them actually led Dyllan, Lily, and I to the river when we were slightly confused on how to get there. After we arrived to the river with his help, the dog stayed around us, traversing from person to person for extra snuggles (which he of course received!).

First mammal interaction – a dog!

I’m looking forward to tomorrow to a full day of adventures!

With love,Sohee

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Pre-departure Blog!

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Hi everyone – my name is Sohee Kim and I’m a Biosciences major with an Ecology & Evolutionary Biology concentration! It is currently 2 days before the trip and I am beyond excited. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Houston since we need to be in ABL by 6 AM on Friday. This will be my first time traveling to Central America and the tropics, so I am super excited to explore a region I’ve never visited before.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been busy preparing by researching my taxa (Surgeonfishes and Rainforest Mammals) as well as preparing for my presentation topic, which focuses on Visual and Auditory Communication in Rainforest Animals. I’ve read numerous scientific articles and am looking forward to seeing some of these organisms in real life.

I expect that I’ll be able to encounter some of the mammal species at our night tour at the Belize Zoo, which I’m especially excited about as a pre-vet student! There were so so many cool mammal species that I wanted to put on the ID sheet, but I had to cut out so many of them. 🙁 I also expect to gain extensive insight into what it is like to be a tropical field biologist, which may help me further shape my career plans—whether I want to focus solely on clinical veterinary medicine or combine it with research. I have gained ecological research (about phytoplanktons!) experience in a lab setting, but I am super thrilled to experience what it’s like to conduct fieldwork in a completely different setting.

Sneak peak for my rainforest taxon ID sheet!

I’ve also read a couple of student blogs from past years, and apparently the howls of the Mexican Black Howler Monkeys were heard, so hopefully we will have a chance to hear (or see!) them too! I also really want to see one of the cat species out in the wild, but I know that is pretty unlikely.. But miracles can happen — so …maybe! I will update on if my wish was fulfilled in my ending blog entry!

Also, I’ve developed a foundational knowledge based on our required readings and additional scientific articles I have read for my presentations, and I’m excited to build on that foundation by visiting the actual historical sites and ecosystems we’ve been reading about. Throughout this trip, I hope to strengthen my observational skills and gain extensive hands-on experience in species identification, fieldwork, and collaboration with classmates in completely new ecosystems!

I’m a little nervous about the inevitable, countless mosquito and bug bites to be obtained throughout the trip, but hopefully my hydrocortisone cream can help with that.. I don’t really have experience with fieldwork other than BIOS 213 (Intro Lab to Ecology/Evolutionary Biology), so I’m really excited for these next two weeks to gain some insight to what it’s like to be a tropical field biologist!

Brazos Bend fieldtrip from BIOS 213!

 

Next blog post, I will actually be in Belize, which is un-belizeable!

Well then, I will see you all in Belize!! 😉

With love,

Sohee