Today was our last day on Middle Caye, so we spent most of it just enjoying ourselves and the reef.
We snorkeled in three different sites in the morning without having to wield any quadrats or slates. The first site in the channel was amazing, but unfortunately my camera died about ten minutes after we started diving. I saw two species of bubble algae in the aquarium site. Highlights that I couldn’t photograph ( 🙁 ) included a flounder, a Pufferfish, a Queen Angelfish, a Scrawled Filefish, a Yellow Stingray, and a Spotted Eagle Ray.
A Scrawled Filefish (photo credit: Alessi)
I also saw a Gray Angelfish and a lot of Spotlight Parrotfish that I had fun chasing around for photographs.
A big Gray Angelfish.A Stoplight Parrotfish.
After we finished on the reef, we measured and dissected the lionfish that Scott and Javier had speared this past week, and we inspected their stomach contents. I don’t like dissecting, so luckily Buck, Adolfo, and Therese were all into doing it.
Scott Solomon spearing a Lionfish.
To end today, we took the boat over to the Marisol Resort and enjoyed the advantages of being in a foreign country. So we could leave a shirt on the wall, Alessi bought one off a fisherman’s back. It was a great way to end the marine portion of our trip and to learn more about Adrienne’s true opinions before she leaves us with Turf and Turiez.
Unfortunately, today the weather was still too windy to go to the reef crest or to do the night snorkel. Instead, we did specimen collection on the back reef and a quick dive on the patch reef before dinner.
In the specimen collection, we picked Udotea flabellum, Halimeda tuna, Halimeda monile, Halimeda incrassate, Dictyosphaeira cavernosa, Caulerpa urvilleana, Acetabularia calcyculus, Penicillus pyriformis, Valonia utricularis, and Rhipocephalus phoenix green algae.
Some brown, red, and green algae samples we collected.
We also brought back a Sun Anemone, a Mantis Shrimp, a Queen conch, circle marked brittle sea stars, a bearded fireworm, and a baby Caribbean reef octopus.
A Queen Conch
During our dives I spent a lot of time looking for fish. I saw more Blue Tangs, a Spotted Moray eel, a French Angelfish, Four-eyed Butterfly Fish, a Cat shark (?), a Grey Angelfish, and French Grunts.
The tail of a Spotted Moray Eel.
It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last full day on Glover’s Reef. It will be nice to be less salty than I’ve been, but I am really going to be sad leaving this amazing place, especially if we don’t get a chance to go to the reef crest before we go.
Today we attempted to recreate the experiment that a former TFB performed on host preference in Christmas tree worms. Christmas tree worms are colorful little annelids that live on the surface of corals. In that way, this was easier than the urchin experiment because they were much easier to see. I saw another Sailor’s eye algae today during the experiment. That was the only time we spent on the reef today, so I didn’t have time to look for other algae species much.
Two Christmas Tree Worms on top of a brain coral.
Besides algae, I also got to see the molt of a Caribbean Spiny Lobster today and a Donkey Dung sea cucumber on the back reef. These are funny because they look like a donkey’s dung (or at least what I assume the dung of a donkey might look like). Tonight when we shone a dive light into the water (it was too rough for us to do a night snorkel), we saw a crocodile and a stingray, too.
A Donkey Dung sea cucumber.
For the last part of today, we collected, sorted, and weighed marine debris. It was shocking, and depressing, to me how much debris there was on Middle Caye because we are so so remote. After 30 minutes of collecting, we didn’t even make a dent in the amount of litter there was within the mangroves, let alone the amount there is in the world, Belize, or even just the amount on Middle Caye.
A large piece of marine debris that was found during our Christmas Tree Worm experiment.
We couldn’t do the night snorkel or go out to the reef crest today, so fingers remain crossed.
Today we completed our MPA vs. General Use Zone comparison by doing quadrat coral cover assessments and urchin collecting on a patch reef in the General Use Zone. It was a lot easier today because conditions were calmer. During the urchin collection, I finally saw Sailor’s Eye Algae! I couldn’t find it again when I went to take a picture, but they look like big shiny bubbles. I also was able to find good examples of calcium carbonate Halimeda chips within the sand.
Some sand grains of algal origin produced by this Halimeda algae.
Today we also listened to a presentation by Javier, our marine safety officer, about the history and culture of Belize. He told us that the four main ethic groups of Belize, the Mestizos, Creoles, Garifunas, and Mayans, were all represented within the staff on Middle Caye, which is only comprised of six people!
The first lowlight of today was that I realized that I am trash at arithmetic when synthesizing our data. The second lowlight was that I realized there had been a frog in my Cheerios box after a frog jumped out of my Cheerios box. Truthfully I hadn’t been getting hungry enough in between meals to be eating them much and they were kind of a jank flavor, but it grossed me out nonetheless.
Some of the urchin size data we were trying to make sense of. Math is hard.
Weather permitting, tomorrow we are going to go snorkel on the reef crest and maybe also do a night dive. I am really excited to see different reef scenery now, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
As neat as the Belize City Airport and the Tropical Education Center were, today is when the real fun stuff started. We woke up at the crack of dawn to meet our boat in Belize City and were on our way by 8. The boat trip was idyllic because the skies were completely clear and the ride was very smooth. The water was a mosaic of different shades of blue, and we could see Mayan Mountains on the horizon. In terms of wildlife, we first saw flying fish and a green turtle. The green turtle sighting was especially special, and he was huge!
The scenery of the boat ride out to Glover’s.
Actually being at Glover’s Reef is pretty wild because I’ve been wanting to come here for so long. Actually diving here is equally wild because it’s the first time I’ve been on a reef with any grain of legitimate knowledge whatsoever with regards to reef life.
After touring the island, eating, and getting settled in the cabins, we did a little “scavenger hunt” on a patch reef to make sure everyone was comfortable in the water. That was quite refreshing after 22 hours of feeling sticky. I saw a lot of stony corals, gorgonians, vase sponges, seagrass, and herbivorous fish all over the patch. Some of the highlights of things that I saw were an Angelfish, a Barracuda, a Manta Ray, and a Feather Duster Polychaete.
A massive coral, with a feather duster worm on it’s surface.
While all these things were quite neat, they could not compare with the Green Algae that I saw!! (I am obligated to be excited about green algae for the duration of this trip but they actually are kind of exciting). Since they were in the sand, rather than on the reef itself, I could get really close to the algae to examine them without worrying about kicking and harming any organisms.
I saw a few species that I know were types of Penicillus. I immediately recognized some Rhipocephalus phoenix when I swam up to it because it really did look like a pinecone! I think I also saw some Penicillus pyriformis. Then I saw an Udotea algae that I think was Udotea flabellum, but it didn’t quite match what I was expecting for either of the Udotea species I had on my card.
Udotea flabellum in the foreground, and Penicullus pyriformis in the background.
Later on, I saw some Halimeda that I guessed may have been Halimeda discoidea. I know for sure that it was Halimeda because I found calcium carbonate Halimeda chips around it.
Halimeda algae. If you look closely in the sand, you can see some Halimeda chips as well.
After the snorkeling, Adrienne took us back to a big heap of coral skeletons on the other side of the island. Apparently it’s super rare for there to be so many skeletons so well preserved and so easily accessible, so that was neat. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone as excited in a graveyard before as Adrienne was. It was a good way to practice identifying stony corals and to clarify the differences between species with similar morphologies by comparing them side by side.
Two of the coral skeletons we saw in the skeleton pile. I think the right one is Pseudodiploria labarinthaformis.
In the evening, Jordan lectured us on the Stony Coral taxon group which bettered our familiarity a bit more. Mikey lectured on Echinoderms which was a lot of new information. I didn’t see any Echinoderms today, but now that I know what to look for I think I’ll be able to spot some tomorrow.
The last thing we did for tonight was make the quadrats we are going to use tomorrow. That was not particularly noteworthy except for the fact that I got my very first wound of the class by stabbing my thumb with a pair of scissors. The trauma was minimal and I’m expecting to survive but I’m sporting a nice little Bandaid for now.
Today has been a long day of travel. Fortunately though, everything went smoothly! I can only hope that tomorrow’s boat ride is equally lacking in complications.
We left Rice a little after 10:30 this morning and loaded on a bus to go to Hobby Airport. Even though our flight didn’t leave until 2:30, the five hours we gave ourselves ended up to be just the right amount of time. As I’m learning, everything goes slower when you’re part of a group of fourteen.
Even though I was in one of the later boarding groups, I managed to snag a window seat. Most of the trip we were flying over the Gulf of Mexico. I fell asleep for a good chunk of the flight, but luckily when I woke up I could see boats below so I assumed we must be nearing the land, and I got to get a glimpse of Mexico’s gulf coast as the land reappeared.
The Gulf coast of Mexico, as seen from the plane
I thought I remembered reading in the textbook for this course that we would fly over the Chiquibul as we approached the Belize City Airport, but I only saw agricultural plots with some trees in between. Maybe I wasn’t looking at the right time, or maybe the author came from a different direction.
Once we landed in Belize City, got our luggage, and got through customs, we got on another bus to head to the place we’re staying for tonight. We also stopped at a supermarket to pick up some snacks.
We are staying for tonight at The Belize Zoo’s Tropical Education Center. We got in just around dinner time, so although they showed us the trails, pond, and observation deck we did not get to do much before dark. However, we’ll be back here again at the midpoint of our trip before we head to Las Cuevas Research Station.
Just walking around the gravel trails here though, we did see a little bit of fauna. I did not see any Green Algae or Orthoptera species, but it was cool to see other people in the class recognize species from their assigned taxa groups.
We saw a green iguana snacking on some leaves in a tree right over the trail. There was also a lot of leaf cutter ants, to the point where there was a sign warning us of their traffic corridors. We saw a lot of epiphytes around the trail on the many trees here. We are in a savanna environment, but at least in the near vicinity of where we’re staying there is much denser vegetation than I would expect for a savanna. Although, driving here we passed a lot of ‘classic savanna’ scenery: sparse short trees, grasses, and very flat land.
Green Iguana Perched Precariously on a Branch
Right in the middle of our cabin, we also saw a little toad. It would be great if all the Orthoptera and algae species got the memo and were to show up right by my bed in the coming days, but my hopes are not high.
This Kind Toad Came Right into our Cabin to be Identified!
This time tomorrow, I will be in Belize. That’s pretty wild, but to be honest it really hasn’t hit me yet. I have been putting so much of my time and thought into preparing for the trip that I haven’t had time to really think about what an exciting and fun experience it’s going to be.
As far as expectations go, I sure hope that the course itself will be less stressful than the time leading up to it has been. I am really excited to get to spend a lot of time on the reef, and I am expecting that I will be able to appreciate it much more than any other snorkel trip I’ve been on. While I’ve visited reefs several times before, I never have been able to experience one through the eyes of being a tropical field biologist! I’m especially excited because I learned so much about reefs in the Coral Reef Ecosystems class this past semester. I’m expecting to see a lot of things that I won’t recognize initially, but I hope by the end of the week on the reef I’ll have a much better idea of what I’m looking at.
In the rain forest, I expect to learn a lot. I’m expecting the days there (and the days on the reef too, I’m sure) to be extremely tiring, so I’m hoping I don’t have any gear issues that make things at all more difficult. I think the last time I was in a rain forest I hadn’t realized that I was blind yet, so I couldn’t see anything. I still don’t have the best eye for detail, but now that I wear contacts I can actually see and I’m hoping I’ll be able to notice things hiding in the trees or underbrush (especially snakes!!)
What I’m hoping to learn from this course is what it’s like to be a field biologist because that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m also excited to learn about the intricacies of the rain forest and the coral reef, two of the world’s most amazing and threatened ecosystems. In preparing for this course, I took Dr. Correa’s class ‘Coral Reef Ecosystems.’ I’m really hoping I’ll be able to apply what I learned last semester to the reef we’ll be studying, and that I didn’t forget too much of the course material by this point in the summer. I’ve also taken other basic EBIO courses, and hopefully those prepared me well in terms of field techniques we might use in the rain forest.
I am nervous that I will not be able to spot any Orthoptera species at all. I am also nervous that I’m going to have trouble identifying species, of both Orthoptera and Green Algae. I’m also nervous about having difficulty staying underwater long enough to get anything done. Luckily, I have prior experience with snorkeling so I’m quite comfortable with that, it’s just the time spent underwater where I struggle sometimes. I’m also nervous that I will be ill prepared in some way. I really really hope I did not forget anything important.
I have a little previous experience in the Tropics, but only as a quite young tourist. I visited the Cloud Forest in Costa Rica with my family one time. I’ve also been to Mexico and snorkeled on reefs and in cenotes in the Yucatan more recently.
I am most excited about seeing unique tropical organisms. I want to see some Christmas tree worms, and maybe some Parrotfish on the reef. In the rainforest, it’d be amazing to see a scarlet macaw, a monkey, or a big cat, but I know that probably won’t happen. And as long as they don’t bite me, I’m exciting to see the snake species we saw during our visit to the Houston Zoo Herpetology exhibit. Finally, I’m exciting to grow close to my fellow Tropical Field Biology Classmates. I can’t believe this course is about to start!
