Hey y’all!
Up bright and early today for a nice head start along with all of the resident hermit crabs and Spiny Iguanas!
We planned our first project after breakfast: following different kinds of Parrotfish (fish that actually do have beaks to eat algae and coral) and keeping track of what they eat.
We headed out in the morning to the patch reef closest to us for the first study site. I saw a whole bunch of the Striped Parrotfish swimming in groups while eating at the coral algae and the seagrass. I have to say, filming and taking pictures underwater is a bit trickier than I thought, so I apologize for the videos and pictures to come, but I think I am getting a bit better at it.
(Striped Parrotfish: Black and white stripes with yellow mouth; Beaugregory: Yellow body with purple top)
We continued this study into the afternoon in two more locations off of Glover’s Reef. While I did see a lot of Striped Parrotfish, I was finding so many Damselfish of different kinds! I think I saw mostly adult Threespot Damselfish (brown with a yellow eyebrow above either eye), Bicolor Damselfish (which are actually three colors–black, white, and yellow–in Belize), and young Threespot Damselfish (yellow with big black spots on their back and tail). I’ll work on getting more pictures of them.
(Threespot Damselfish)
After dinner, we got special presentations from Mr. Kenneth–the manager of Glover’s Reef station– about the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), as well as the marine biologist of the team from the Fisheries Department for Belize, and the Belize Coast Guard. It was really cool to learn how they all work together to protect and learn about the wildlife in the islands around Glover’s Reef!
(Left to right: Mr. Kenneth, Dr. Kory Evans, and Dr. Scott Solomon)