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Leaving Las Cuevas

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…or did we.

Morning departure was delayed by unforeseen complications with the transportation, so we did not get on our way until around noon; we were supposed to leave at seven am. This made problematic our visit of the ATM cave, and it was unclear if we would be able to see it at all. Luckily Boris, a worker for FCB, gave us a tour to pass our time.

Spoiler alert: we skipped the cave. I was upset, but after spending all day in a cramped van/bus, I was already claustrophobic enough for one day. We did get a chance to buy some souvenirs and smoothies (yum) at our pitstop on the way. AND SNACKS FOR DAYS.

The day took a turn, however, when we arrived at the Belize Zoo and got to take part in a private night tour. We saw none of my taxa, but to be honest, the animals we saw were significantly more exciting. A black jaguar (named Lucky Boy) and a tapir (named Indy) were my two favorite animals because we got to touch them! That’s right mom and dad, I touched a jaguar and survive to tell the tale. Granted it was behind a fence and I still flinched when it tried to get my hand with its HUGE TOOTH FACE, but I feel accomplished.

Tomorrow we begin the reef portion of the course and I am excited and ready to present to you the diversity of sponges at Glover’s Atoll!

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Day 8: : A Heartfelt Departure from Las Cuevas

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Today, I left my forest haven. It’s certainly been a wild ride with my cockroach buddies, witnessing firsthand the cockroach species of Belize. While I didn’t mean the farewell to be sentimental, sometimes nature has its own plans. As I prepared to pack my belongings onto the (very late) bus, I noticed a small cockroach that I had identified previously in my records running across the open clearing towards me. This was strange to me, as it was the middle of the day, and the roach was terribly exposed in the open field. It seemed in a bit of a hurry, so I let it keep on with its business. However, deep inside me, I almost felt a sentimental connection with the roach, bidding it farewell as I drove in the class bus to our new lodgings in preparation for Glover’s Reef.

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We drove from Las Cuevas and stopped at the Belize Zoo Lodge after a few hours of finagling with a mixed up bus schedule. At the zoo, we had the opportunity to see up close the mammals that inhabited the forest surrounding the Las Cuevas research station (the Chiquibul forest). The zoo staff showed the various big cats like jaguars, ocelots, and pumas and shared the backstories behind how the zoo obtained these beautiful felines. Many of the creatures from the zoo were rescued by the forestry departments, either from neglectful pet owners or simply weaker individuals from the wild.

 

While today felt more like a luxury visit, complete with ice cold drinks and gift shops, I needed to remind myself that the tropical field biologist adventure is still ongoing.

 

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We’ll meet again, Orthoptera… some sunny day

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Our last day at Las Cuevas came sooner than I thought possible. It is bittersweet because it is over but I was so excited finding, identifying, and taking photos of the myriad flora and fauna in the Chiquibul forest this week. I will come back, or at least I will adventure somewhere similar before I forget what a wonderful time this has been.

Last night’s hike lit by the full moon was surreally bright and teeming with life unseen in the light of day. Nothing could prepare me (or Dr. Correa) for the size of the roaches and spiders I encountered on the trail.

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Most exciting for me was the sighting of multiple Monkey Hoppers (Family: Eumsticidae). These little guys hold their legs at a strange angle to their body, and they are often wingless. Only found in the neotropics, I was so excited to finally see one in person.

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Today on our trek to collect our camera traps I got lucky once again, finding a plant on the trail ROILING with lubber nymphs. The exact species of this lubber was unclear to me, but it was possibly Tropidacris cristata—comonly known as the Giant Red-Wing. Multiple stages of development were present on this plant, presenting a wonderful visual display of the life cycle of hemimetabolus insects like Orthoptera. I will be sing much fewer of these little buddies on the reef, but get ready for my reports on sponges!!!

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Belize zoo

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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.

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Sophia Streeter

5-24

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Last day in the Chiquibul

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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.

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Sophia Streeter

5-23

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

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Night Hike

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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

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Caves and Pitfalls

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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.

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Sophia Streeter

5/21

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Ant Day

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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

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Missed Adventures, Day 8

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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!

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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!
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Camera Traps

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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