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!”
The 319 crew trekked to each green and red sticky note, accumulating 13.25 miles of hiking.Randy is reading out the GPS coordinates of one of our last camera traps.
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!
A black species of Euglossini bee. Taken at Crystal Paradise.Africanized honey beesCaracolCaracolThe 319 crew minus Scott at Caracol. PC: Scott Solomon
Well we all died physically today. I believe that the final amount of miles hiked was a little bit above 13. My feet are destroyed. The back of my right knee feels like a pulled a muscle in it. I have a bug bite with dried blood on it and a bruise. But I don’t consider today a bad day by any stretch of the imagination. Why? Because I spotted on the orchids on my taxonomic ID sheet. (Oncidium altissimum) It was so so exciting, I can’t even put it elegantly into words. These are the moments when it becomes painfully obvious that I have to be an EBIO. The major is all that I am interested in. Of course, I also saw the large green bromeliad (as well as a couple other structurally similar bromeliads), further reminding me to look for a book in LCRS. I think what my new strategy is going to be is to try to assess my findings via my pictures after the day is done. Especially on today’s hike, we were moving so quickly that I couldn’t figure out my epiphytes in time.
As for our project, we decided to look at how man-made clearings and natural clearings compare. We picked quite the variety of sites, which is why we ended up walking so far during the day. It took us so long that when we got back the station, it had been dark for hours, (I think we all thanked the EBIO gods when Scott said that tomorrow wouldn’t be nearly as much walking.)
Tomorrow we focus on ants, having just listened to the taxonomic briefing on the topic. We don’t yet know what the two projects will be but they will be great. I have no doubt that this will get me even more excited to take insect biology in the fall with Dr. Solomon.
Our first real day has been quite eventful. Most importantly, I got to get a sense of the species composition of epiphytes in Belize. I wish I had the ability to revise my species ID card. It’s so difficult to determine what is going to be of high prevalence in a specific (and unfamiliar) region when we are so far away. I keep seeing this large green bromeliad on many different types of trees. I hope that the Ethernet comes through tonight when I upload my blog so that I can look it up. On the bright side, I also think that I saw an Androlepis skinneri on one of the trees in near the Mayan city of Caracol.
Visiting those ruins was one of the most sweltering experiences of my life. Still, no one was going to let sweat hinder their willingness to see Mayan ruins. The scale of what was accomplished never ceases to amaze. I think that everyone in the group was feeling similarly. Everywhere I went, the large green bromeliad taunted me. I keep forgetting to go look at the books available at the Las Cuevas Research Station. I have one on orchids but I don’t expect that it will be utilized or all that helpful.
I am mentally preparing myself for tomorrow. I think it will be a big day of hiking. I’m not sure that I’m physically prepared I am. We will see tomorrow.
Today did not start off the way we thought it would. Rather than being concerned about the water quality in Belize, we found that Houston was the problem. The entire Hobby airport was out of water. Apparently their main pump had malfunctioned. For us, this meant that no toilets were flushing, no water fountains working, and no food being served. All of us immediately felt the pangs of hanger. This has become the first bonding experience of the trip.
Belize itself is lovely. I have only been in the country for a handful of hours, but I have enjoyed it so far. Though I have been low-grade sweating for hours, I won’t let my hatred of humidity bring this trip down for me.
After arriving at the airport and making the long van ride to the Crystal Paradise (stopping of course for food!) we finally got to sit down to great meal. After eating everything in sight, we settled down for presentations. Or so we thought. The projector did not work at all. After trying about six different laptops, we gave up.
I gave my presentation with multiple copies going on about three laptops. Today, I also got my first look at the epiphytes of Belize. I don’t think that I could really tell what they were as we were driving quickly down the roads. I can’t wait to go to Caracol tomorrow, hopefully to see more epiphytes!
One last thing. I saw the most amazing trail of leaf cutter ants walking across the hotel grounds. Stephanie, Anna and I followed them to the hole entrance into their nest. After that, we went and followed the trail a long way back, to the tree from which they were actually getting the leaf cuttings. It was one of the most amazingly organized things I had ever seen. What’s more, they had very distinct trails (just like human hiking trails) going across the entire grounds. I can’t tell you how much this interested me. A truly unique experience.
Today’s task seemed simple: form a hypothesis and set up 12 camera traps in the forest surrounding LCRS.
Twelve hours later, our work is finally complete, but it was much easier said than done. After a 5:30am birdwatching session and a hot cup of tea, we set off to develop our experiment. We opted to test the impact of human pathways on local species richness and composition in the Chiquibul by setting up camera traps along roads and trails, as well as in natural clearings. In five days, we’ll collect these traps and see what diverse organisms they’ve managed to catch on film.
The morning’s hike seemed manageable on a map, but many hours and some (incredible) scarlet macaw sightings later, we had set up only half of our traps. By our 3pm lunch break, I had walked 7.8 miles or 16, 652 steps. Talk about a morning workout.
View from Bird Tower near LCRS.
Right before lunch, we ended our work at the Las Cuevas Bird Tower. The rickety tower stands at over 600 m of elevation, and the view is almost worth the steep hike up. (Note to entrepreneurs: the Bird Tower would be an ideal location for opening an ice cream stand).
Sumichrast’s skink (Eumeces sumichrasti).
Despite sweat and blisters, we loaded up on lunch and set off on the Monkey Tail Trail to install the remaining traps in clearings and a natural stream. The main reptile for today was the Sumichrast’s skink (Eumeces sumichrasti), an orange and black lizard with a bright blue tail. I saw evolution in action when we caught a blue-tailed skink; the lizard quickly shed its skin and darted off, leaving the wriggling blue tail in our palms (and the rest of the animal out of sight).
With our twelfth and final camera trap set in a mud wallow for a prospective tapir sighting, we finally trudged our way home. Though we were all exhausted and covered in sweat (and ticks, in some cases), I found somepeace in the pitch black of the forest. The trees of the canopy arched over the trail to form a tunnel, just like the trees at home on University Boulevard. And just as the blinking lights of the city lead me home at Rice, the twinkling eyes of spiders lit up the trail with pinpricks of yellow light, finally leading us back to Las Cuevas.
This morning started out so promising when we saw some Scarlett Macaws. Things went downhill (and uphill and downhill and up some larger hills) from there.
Today we set up camera traps to answer our question “what is the impact of human pathways on local species composition and richness in Chiquibul Forest?” We will look specifically at roads and pathways vs. natural clearings. We had 12 camera traps to set up and we were very ambitious in how far away we wanted to put each camera from one another. Our hike lasted all day (with a short break for lunch and bandages at 3), and we hiked a total of 13.47 miles (and apparently some 120 flights of stairs according to Adrienne’s fitbit).
During the hike I saw thousands of arachnids scurrying underfoot, and one huge wolf spider (about 3 in including its legs). We also became very acquainted with our new best friend: the tick. I pulled about 5 or 6 off of myself before dinner.
Elaborate spider web along the trail.
During the hike, my feet started killing me around 12pm when I realized that the pads of my heels were rubbing against my sock in a weird way. I spent the rest of the hike with moleskin sweating off of me as we hiked up to our highest point of 685 meters in elevation. We saw some fabulous long wing butterflies at the bird tower observation deck, which was our highest camera trap point.
There was much sweat and pain, so I certainly hope we get something good from these camera traps. Next stop: ant experiments.
Today was our first day in the field. The project of the day was to set up 12 camera traps around Las Cuevas that will record information about the animals that are active in the area. The traps will take pictures of animals for 5 days, until our last day at LCRS. This information will allow us to make inferences about the number of species in the area and where they are most likely to be found. We’re hoping that we placed the traps in such a way so they’ll capture lots of small animals and maybe some big cats, like jaguars or ocelots.
One of the best parts of the day today was seeing a group of scarlet macaws fly right by where we were. Scarlet macaws are really rare in Belize, and are threatened by poachers that take them from their nests. Hopefully increased awareness about the problem will help to decrease poaching. Tourists should avoid taking pictures with macaws that aren’t in zoos or otherwise obtained legally in order to decrease demand for macaws.
We also saw a lot of tree species along the paths today including bastard mahogany, cedar, cecropia, fiddlewood, gumbo-limbo, give-and-take palm, mahogany, chicle, and strangling fig. Some of the chicle trees were extremely tall, and it was interesting to see the marks from the chicleros go up the tree as far as we could see.
Give-and-take palm – note the sharp spines!All of the mahogany was small due to logging in the pastChicle tree featuring scars from chicleros and Randy for scale
Over the course of the day we walked almost 14 miles (and in rainboots no less!) so it’s safe to say I’ll sleep well tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to learn a lot about ants. Turns out they have a pretty advanced societal structure!
Cockroaches come in all different shapes, colors, and abilities, but they usually have a similar body plan that renders them distinguishable from other types of insects. Usually, cockroaches are dull colored, ranging from light brown to black. This probably assists them with camouflaging in the leaf litter, where most of them can be found. However on a few occasions you will find a roach with such a beautiful coloration that many would believe it to be something else. One roach photographed that neither Scott nor I had seen before was found relaxing on a moss covered rock.
It was colored a combination of red, yellow, and black stripes all along the pronotum and abdomen and possibly the most beautiful cockroach as of today. In excitement I attempted to capture the creature in my handy tupper ware container, only to see the creature squeeze through the grip of my hands and fly back into the leaf litter. I was frustrated of course, but later realized that I don’t need to capture these cockroaches in order to document their appearance to some extant. That was a lesson I made sure to not forget during this week at Las Cuevas. However, I wasn’t sure when I would be given another opportunity to find another specimen of the same species.
Luckily, during a short segment of a difficult hike, Dr. Correa found the same species and called for me, the so-called “roach expert.” And just like that, after a few photographs, I managed to capture an image of this awesome specimen. I’m not sure if this type of tropical roach is described anywhere in Belize, or even Central American roach databases! But more research will be needed to verify that. For now, enjoy the picture at the bottom! [I later found it that this roach is a wasp-mimicking cockroach of the genus Pseudophyllodromia].
Besides a few other roach specimens, today was very tiring! We walked about 13.5 miles of uneven terrain, a personal record for me, all to set up camera traps for one of our projects. However at each place, I was starting to have a surreal feeling of living the tropical field biologist life! While the hard science of the course is getting to my head, and my legs, the opportunity to contribute to the growing knowledge of Belize’s forest as well as the chance to observe stunning habitats overshadows the inconvenience of tiredness! Here’s to another lesson filled day tomorrow!
Not all roaches are dull! Some are fabulous. UPDATE (May 29): After some online research, I’ve learned that this roach is of the genus Pseudophyllodromia, a type of wasp-mimicking cockroach! I don’t really see the wasp resemblance but perhaps I should contact at true roach expert!
Another early morning. Five am birdwatching was fun to listen to as I was dreaming, and I woke up briefly when Adrienne screamed, shocked to find her son’s toy pupa in the secret compartment of her coffee thermos. It’s hard to explain what makes some of the funnier things from this trip so funny. Maybe its the delirium setting in but hey, a good time is a good time. I guess you would have to be here.
You also have to be here to see the Scarlett Macaw (segue!!) which we did after breakfast this morning. I can’t say exactly where we saw them, because revealing their locations to poachers who prowl the internet could endanger the safety of the small population that lives in Belize. I can’t even post images of them. Needless to say, their amazing creatures. Look them up.
Before long, our day of ardor had begun. We set twelve camera traps in multiple areas and along corridors, both manmade and natural, to compare the impact of humans on species richness and community composition. The hike totaled thirteen miles by the end of the day. Two pairs of boxer-briefs and twelve hours later, we finished. Along the way I spotted this little fella.
Taenipoda eques, the Horse Lubber Grasshopper. This one’s a nymph, so no wings yet. These get pretty big though, commonly over four or five inches long. They are poisonous as well, like yesterday’s Abel’s Katydid, the yellow markings tell predators to avoid this morsel. When they are threatened they also release a noxious liquid foam that deters any truly committed attacker. I also can do this when it’s hot out.
Also included is a picture of a Leaf Mimic Katydid. Family: Tettiigoniidae. She looks like a dead leaf! Wow!
P.S. The title is because my pants are destroyed with sweat— somehow that has to do with Oppenheimer creating the atom bomb. Like I said the delirium is setting in and I think it’s time for bed.
