I've be spoiled in terms of the projects progress so far. I'm used to catching ~20 lizards a day if I go at it hard.
Today was a long one and I only caught 4 baby iguanas, 2 brown basilisks, and 1 green basilisk.
Not bad.
But not the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to.
There is good news though, I have an assistant!... sorta.
Undergrad assistant to the undergraduate researcher.
I know.
I'm kinda a big deal.
Her name is Ashley. She's part of the undergraduate OTS summer course. It's a month long program where they travel around different research stations in Costa Rica for a month. She'll be here for another week and she's trying to do a project looking at feeding preferences of iguanas. The deal is, she helps me catch baby iguanas, I CTmax them, then she can have them for her study. Pretty good deal all around.
It made this a lot easier:
Plus, now I have someone to harass every few minutes, "Oh, oh, take a picture of me doing this.", "Oh, oh, this will be great for the blog.", "OMG this would be the best photo ever."
We'll see how long she sticks around...
I do have one itty-bitty new complaint. Something I thought I was leaving behind in California and wouldn't have to deal with.
Ticks! I like looking at most Arachnids. These, however, I'd do fine never dealing with again!
They're real tiny too. Fortunately they carry no tick-borne diseases. They're just annoying. And unlike the CA ticks you can feel it when these little jerks bite you. What feels like a sticker in your clothes is mostly likely a tiny little tick. Gross. It's interesting that they don't carry any diseases here. I wonder what that's all about?
Aside from 4 adorable baby iguanas, we also saw some other pretty cute baby animals.
Tayassu tajacu (Collared Peccary) I have such a love hate relationship with these animals. On the one hand they always love to mess with my temperature models so I have to go searching through the jungle for my partially chewed iButtons. On the other hand...look at the babies!
Ateles geoffroyi (Spider Monkey) I also have been engaged in a love-hate relationship with these. Ever since they threw their poop at me... I still need to learn to forgive. Okay monkey, It's okay you threw poop at me, you were probably just involved in some kind of bizarre monkey ritual. Was that your way of accepting me into your tribe? Or showing me you wanted to be friends? I forgive you monkey.
Plus, how can you stay mad at a face like that? Piggy-back ride across the bridge?! Too much!
Bradypus variegatus (Three-toed Sloth) I'm not going to lie. This thing looks exactly like the two-toed sloth. If it weren't for the other people standing around I never would have been able to recognize it either. Regardless of finger amount...look at that face, what an awesome animal.
Coendou mexicanun (Prehensile Tailed Porcupine) Unlike their North American counterparts, these have prehensile tails with no quills on the end. They use them as a fifth limb to climb through the canopy. In the flashlight their quills looked almost neon yellow. Pretty awesome!
We still managed to catch a few new snakes too.
Dipsas bicolor (Bicolored Snaileater) [orange and black], Sibon longifrenis (Lichen-colored Slugeater) [orange and green], and Leptodeira annulata [Cat-eyed Snake].
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