6/25/2013

More work work work today.

For about half a second each day I think of how hot it is, how I'm constantly sweaty, it never stops raining, mosquitoes are everywhere, I haven't had a good nights sleep since I got here, my feet are sore, stupid birds ate one of my ibuttons, no hot water for showers, I miss my wife and family dearly...

All I have to do is take a look around though.

I mean, come on. How awesome is this place?

I feel like 'david after dentist'.

 "Is this real life?"

Dirty, stinky, sweaty and sore = one of the best experiences of my life!

At this point I think I'm harder pressed to find a spot of skin that isn't covered by scratches/blisters/mosquito bites.

It's still pretty darn hard to complain.

Did I mention I caught a f*cking Caiman!

The lab portion of my project is going well. I have 59/120 collected, sampled, measured and released.

We did have one fatality though...RIP frogrickson


I have to admit it's really hard to get any work done with some of these species.

 How am I supposed to get any work done when these animals are so darn cute?

I could either: A) stick this guy in a chamber and raise the temp and then blah blah blah

or

B) Let him jump all over me and take the world's most adorable photos

 I think I made the right choice.

It rained for 95% of the daylight hours today, so why not have some fun and take silly pictures?

I even found a cool new froggie right near the lab!

Smilisca baudinii (Mexican Treefrog) It's amazing how cryptic this thing was. It looks just like another frog, the masked treefrog. Oddly enough the characteristic that narrowed this down to species was "...web-like reticulum of thin gray markings around the groin"... Umm, are they talking about its darkstar?

 After a long days work and a hearty meal of

you guessed it

rice and beans.

It was time to go back into the swamp.

Yesss.

Step 1: Release the lizards and frogs I had caught from the night before

I bet you'll never find the fifth lizard in this photo.

That was mean.

There are only four.

Step 2:

Super Turtle!

Another white-lipped mud turtle. But this one had some meat on its bones.


After some unnecessary fooling around it was time to release my beautiful and amazingly photogenic red-eyed tree frogs.

Keep in mind when I found them they were basically glued together.

So I decided it would be best to transport them in the same bag and store them that way over night.

It was weird that the next day they didn't seem to want anything to do with one another. In fact they stayed in opposite corners the entire time.

Later that night when I released them I figured out why.

What!? I leave you frogs alone for a few hours and this is what happens?

I just hope they used protection.



It's pretty awesome that they dind't want anything to do with one another the next day.

Typical. 

 After only catching one new lizard in an hour it was time to call it quits.

Luckily for me we found one more nugget of jungle awesomeness.

Imantodes inornatus (Yellow Blunt-headed Vinesnake) Such a cool snake! It's hard to tell from the photo but it had an SVL close to a meter (SVL is Snout-Vent Length, or the distance from its lip to its privates). It had this amazing ability to stretch out in any direction. For such a skinny snake it had so much muscle! These snakes are rear-fanged venomous. So the have little fangs at the back of their mouths that they use to eat frogs and their eggs. Pretty darn cool.

I'm quickly becoming addicted the swamps.

Night in the jungle is also becoming one of my favorites.

I think I like it here.