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Day 6: Crap Kingdom Pt 2: Urine Trouble

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I woke up again at 6:15 to finish my blog from the previous day and go birding. We ate a quick breakfast and met outside to regroup before the collection of our urine samples. Before we left, we read sections of the novel Crap Kingdom, which we found in the book exchange in the lab, which was entertaining because it was so bad. We left for our hike and collected our urine samples one by one while making sure to label our samples. We saw a smoothed anole, a Gasterocanthis cancriformis (a type of orb weaver spider) and a jumping spider, all of which were chilling in the leaf litter.

Gasterocanthis cancriformis

 

We came back and began sorting through our samples. We used a fish net as a sieve to catch the bugs and sorted through them using microscopes to identify the morphospecies. We all separated our tasks and worked on the poster while sorting through the species. We took a quick break to play in the rain for a while before getting back to work.

We finished our poster while two new groups came in: one was from the Belikan Beer Company and the other was from University of Southern Mississippi. We finished our poster and were asked whether we wanted to present to the other college group. After deliberation, we decided to and presented for all 25 of them. Elena started the presentation with Welcome to Pee-lize so it went really well. After presenting, we went to dinner and ate beans, tortillas, and potato salad. We did our lectures with Kristen covering mammals, Chloe covering reptiles, and Sam talking about tropical diseases. We all went to the lab and headed to bed after working on blogs and notebooks.

Arachnids found: Gasterocanthis cancriformis- small white morph, found on underside of a leaf found in leaf litter of 50-hectare plot; Jumping spider- green spider, jumping around in the leaf litter of 50-hectare plot; Florida bark scorpion- large black with red/brown legs, found on deck outside lab caught in jar by Scott.

All of these were expected

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Day 5: We turn the Chiquibul into a Tropical Rave Forest

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I woke up bright and early at 6:15 again, as I’ve taken to for every day of this trip. After spotting a chachalaca and more oropendolas, we had a breakfast of eggs, fryjacks, and beans. After that, Scott gave us our briefing for the day over hurricane gaps and their affect on the abundance of pioneer species if trees that fall have new growth or not. After deciding as a group that we would try to compare the growth of pioneer species on new growth trees vs dead trees, we headed out on the shortcut trail. After an hour of looking at the hurricane gap, we decided that our question was almost impossible to answer so we decided to compare richness in gap areas and nongap areas instead.

We went down the gap and took five samples and then took five more samples in nongap areas on the rest of the shortcut path and the bird trail. For the samples we threw a quadrant of four white pipes and collected all the leaves in the quadrant. Along the way we spotted a hooded basilisk, two Florida bark scorpions (one with babies on her back) and a few species of harvestmen that I had couldn’t identify but were cool. We came back to the station and had a nice fried rice lunch. We headed to the lab and began working on a poster to present our data. We sorted the leaves into morphospecies and drew up the poster before presenting to Scott.

A Slightly Blurry Harvestmen

 

An Unidentified Green Spider

After a short break, we headed to the classroom for lectures. Sam presented on bees and Jessica presented on amphibians before I presented on auditory and visual communication. At one point during this talk, Adrienne threw her notebook at me after implying that she and Scott were old for not knowing the ultimate sexy song, “Careless Whisper”. So all in all, lectures went well.

 

After dinner, we went on our first night hike to the frog pond and the Mayan Trail, which Pedro joined us on. We saw many cockroaches, white-lipped turtles, wolf spiders, a baby red-backed coffee snake. We turned off all our lights and stayed quiet for a few minutes to see and hear what the rainforest truly is at night, which lasted like five seconds until I put my flashlight under my light blue water bottle so that Elena and I could have a forest rave. We came back and looked at the stars and saw a large wolf spider with an egg sac under the cedar tree. We all showered and worked on our notebooks until we all headed to bed.

Arachnids spotted: harvestmen along every trail-unidentified species but had a very ovular body and differing body lengths; 2 Florida bark scorpions on a log near hurricane gap, one with babies on her back; Many different types of wolf spiders on all trails-notably large one with egg sac underneath cedar tree near dorms. Also, a large one with a yellow abdomen on a leaf in the Monkey Trail; A few furry green spiders with striped legs on tree trunks along all trails- unidentified but had ovular webs

All of these were expected but I was unable to identify a lot of the species and occasionally not even the family so I’ll have to find out more when we have internet.

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Day 4: You Belong with TFBs: Taylor Swift’s World Tour Brings Her to the Chiquibul

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After a slightly more restful night, I woke up at about 6:15 AM and got ready for the day. I chilled on the birding deck for a while before eating a little breakfast. The main issue with the morning was that we had to chug a ton of water to get hydrated for peeing in two vials for our leaf litter experiment. It took me an hour and three water bottles, but I eventually did it. We discussed our plans for the leaf litter pea traps and set off down the 50-hectare trail for our experiment.

We set each trap 100 feet apart on the two segments of the 50-hectare plot. Each of us handled our own pee and buried one in the floor and one tied to a tree, with a water trap next to each. On the trail we ran into a red-banded coral snake, a tailless whip scorpion (Taylor Swift Scorpion), and plenty of blue morphos. We spent the entire morning setting the traps and came back for lunch, where we had broth and rice. I’m still having trouble eating but I was able to get a more of this down.

The Infamous Taylor Swift Spider

We left at 1:20 for caving, after many warnings about how gross we were about to get. Pedro lead us through the nine chambers of the cave, which was covered in guano and mud. Inside, we saw many troglobites, bats, a few other smaller species of tailless whip scorpions, Mayan pottery, and tree roots. We came back after exploring the entire cave, we headed back, showered, and went for dinner.

After dinner, we had out lectures on butterflies and moths (Veronica), Orthoptera (Andressa) and Cave biology (Kristen) Afterwards, a lot of us headed down to the dining room to work on our notebooks and blogs before heading back to sleep.

Arachnids seen: tailless whip scorpion on log of the flagpole of 50 hectare plot that we picked up with our notebook; 2 smaller species amblypygids (unknown name) in the cave on a rock close to each other; Baby Florida bark scorpion in the cracks of the deck of Las Cuevas; Mexican Red Rump Tarantula in its burrow outside the dorms; Unknown large brown spider outside our door- Andressa caught it in a jar; Very large Florida bark scorpion inside the middle sink of the bathroom- fled into the sinkhole

All of these were pretty expected, though the scorpions and the tailless whip scorpions did kind of spring up on us.

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Day 3: We Got a Few Ticks Up Our Sleeves

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I woke up bright and early at 5:15 to bird watch, where we saw oropendolas, a flock of Red Lore parrots, and a friendly bee that loved Elena’s hair. All these sightings were pretty expected but were really cool nonetheless. We ate a nice breakfast of eggs, beans, and journey cakes which I didn’t really eat because I’m still feeling a little queasy. We went up to the lecture hall and Scott gave us a briefing on Camera Traps. We had a quick discussion on some ideas for the traps and, after a long deliberation, we decided on testing how the presence of trails affects mammal presence and abundance.

An Orb Weaver Spider Web Chilling in The Trees

We set off on our hike at 9:30ish and headed down the Monkey Trail, up the Saffron Trail and then down the San Pastor road. Along the way, we ran into a boa constrictor chilling on the forest floor and a huge leafcutter nest, which gave all of us a jump. We came back for lunch, ate some rice and plantains, and headed back out on the 50-hectare plot. We set up our last two camera trap pairs and spotted a zombie ant on a fern. We came back, I showered quickly, then Rafael M. director of the FDC gave us a talk on the conservation efforts on the region, which was really fascinating. We ate dinner and headed to the lecture room for talks, which I gave on arachnids, Elena gave on ants, and Claire gave on the Paradox of Tropical Soils. Afterwards, we all headed to the dining room to work on these blogs!

Arachnids spotted: a wolf spider in the leaf litter of the Saffron Tree-unidentified species; Wolf spider mother on San Pastor Road, spotted by Adrienne with eggs on her back; Unidentified red mite on breakfast table; Many many chigger bites on Veronica, Jessica, and Adrienne (RIP); Almost everyone got a tick bite, including me, under my watch – they hurt; Red Rumps in the clearing by the lecture hall that scurried back into their holes after they saw us.

Can you spot the spider?

All of these are expected, unfortunately, but still really cool.

 

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Day 2: Being Rio On Fleek

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We woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM, even though it definitely didn’t feel that early at all. We got ready, had breakfast, and packed up to drive to our next destination.

First, we stopped at the Rio On pools,

The Rio On Pools

where we had a lot of fun tumbling down the waterfall slides and swimming in the small pools at the base of each waterfall. That is, until we found out that there were leeches in the pools (I was bitten 4 times). We still had fun in the pools though, even doing a train down one of the waterfalls. We got out, changed, and went back into the bus for the next leg of our journey.

Wolf Spider Hiding in the Leaf Litter of Caracol

We arrived at Caracol at about 11 and our tour guide Leo gave us a tour of the Mayan ruins. Along the way, we ran into some cool organisms, including black Howler Monkeys, Oropendola birds, wild avocado, and more. We ate a quick lunch and hopped into the van to go to Las Cuevas

We arrived at Las Cuevas around 4 and met the station manager Rafael, his wife Angelica (in charge of kitchens) and Pedro (the assistant manager) After a quick orientation and some scarlet macaws, we put our stuff up and took a quick hike around the station. Along the way, we saw leaf cutter ants, give-and-take palms, parrots, and a few others. We headed back to the station, ate dinner, and listened to Claire give a talk on birds, Ceyda give a talk on trees, and Chloe give a talk on the canopy. After that, I showered and got ready for tomorrow!

Arachnids: This morning I saw a small garden spider in the bushed of the ecolodge along with his web. I wasn’t able to identify it but it was 5mm and a transparent green in color, with a long ovular. We saw many Mexican Red tarantula webs at the bases on trees near the Mayan plaza though we didn’t get to see the actual organisms and that wold spider above in the leaf litter. Leo gave us information about the mating dances of the males which was fascinating. At Las Cuevas, we saw two Mexican red rumps in the grass outside our lodgings after dinner as they scurried into their burrow. We expected to see a few here so it was unsurprising to find them.

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Day 1: Journey to Belize

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Day 1: I woke up at my sister’s house in Houston and began those last minute checks for all of my gear. We grabbed smoothies from Juiceland and headed down to Rice. I brought all of my bags from the car into ABL and grabbed our extra gear to pack. We all loaded into the Rice bus and headed to Hobby.

We met Claire’s dad, who happened to be our pilot, went through security and ate lunch (I ate at Yia Yia Mary’s). We waited in the terminal and then finally boarded! The flight wasn’t too long, especially since I slept for half of it. My first impression of Belize was that it was very similar in look and development to other Central American countries that I’ve visited, like Costa Rice. We went pretty quickly through customs, got our bags, and met our driver Edward as we loaded up into our van.  We stopped by a store to grab extra supplies and I picked up gummy bears and a towel.

We started our drive to Crystal Paradise Ecolodge. Along the way, we drove through a lot of small villages, saw a few forest fires, and talked about the trip. We drove for about 2.5 hours and finally arrived at the Lodge. We put all of our bags in our rooms and ate a great dinner.

I haven’t seen any arachnids yet but I expect to run into a few soon. We’ve been in fairly populated areas so I’m not terribly surprised that we haven’t seen any but we will probably run into some tomorrow.

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Crystal Paradise EcoLodge
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Almost time to go!

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Somehow we’re about to leave and I have no idea how the time has gone by.  This will be my first time going to Belize and I’m excited to see what the country has to offer.  However, I’ve traveled to Central America before so I know a little of what to expect. This will also be my first time traveling outside the country for something other than a vacation so I’m also really excited to see what it’s like to travel with other purposes besides relaxing in mind.

In terms of preparation, reading the book and researching my taxa and lecture topic were all really great ways for me to feel like I’m ready for the trip. I feel like I know at least some of what to expect when we get there because of what we’ve already learned. Packing for this trip was a little difficult because this is my first time going on a trip like this so I can only hope that I’ve gotten everything that I’ll need.

I’m a little nervous about being able to handle all of the activities that we’re going to do but I’m also really excited for them.  I think I’m the most excited for exploring the caves near Las Cuevas and exploring the reefs around Glovers. I expect to experience Belize in a unique and memorable way and really delve into the surroundings there. I hope I come out of this trip with a greater understanding of how important every part of an ecosystem is and how important biology is to our everyday lives. I feel as ready as I’ll ever be to get the most out of this trip!