¡Hola! I writing this blog from the small town of Boccas del Torro in Panama! I spent the last month at the Marine Lab taking a class on Conservation and Development. The class was interesting, but I'd much rather be out in the field. And here I am again! I am currently taking a week-long class over Spring Break called Experimental Tropical Marine Ecology. The class is made up of the professor, Huberto, and six undergraduates: Morgan, Nonny, Asian Emma, White Emma, Justin, and myself. We began this journey on Saturday when we left North Carolina and flew to Panama City, Panama. We checked into a hotel and went out for a quick bit to eat, even though it was 11 p.m. I tried a Panamiña dish called Sancocho. It was a broth filled with roots and almost a whole chicken! It was delicioso!
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| Just arrived in Panama! (We rocked the tie-dye on the plane!) |
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| Dinner! |
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| Mangroves! |
Unfortunately, we had to wake up at 4:30 to catch another flight to Boccas del Torro and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. This area of the country is absolutely beautiful, filled with vivid rainforests and sandy beaches. Shortly after arriving and dropping our stuff in our rooms, we all jumped into a small boat and headed to a separate island. The boat had a glass bottom and we were able to see sea stars and urchins as we sped across the reef. We arrived at a dock hidden amongst the mangroves.
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| Rainforest next to a beach! |
Within 30 minutes of debarking from the boat, we spotted 4 three-toed sloths (including a baby), a spider monkey, a Montezuma Oropendola (a beautiful bird of paradise), a row of leaf-cutter ants, and a red dart frog (incredibly poisonous). We saw all of these animals as we hiked through the rainforest to get to the coast. Also, on the way there our boat driver cracked open a coconut and we all had a taste of the freshest coconut milk. I don't even like coconut, but this was amazing! We drank the milk and chewed on the meat as we continued our hike. Our goal was to make it to the location of the small population of hermit crabs in this area. We needed to collect 100 hermit crabs to use in our experiment. It only took 20 minutes because there were so many! We put them into little cups to transport them back to the lab, although hiking out of the rainforest with 150 crabs was difficult.
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| Leaf-cutter ants |
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Poison Dart frog (the poison gets in you if
you have a cut on your hand) |
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| Coconut Milk! |
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| Hermit Crab! |
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| Experiment contraption |
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| All our crabs snug and tight for the night |
On the way back to the lab, we suddenly stopped and went snorkeling above the reef. The visibility wasn't great, but there was so much biodiversity in the little bit of reef we were able to explore! We finally made it back to the lab and worked for a long time trying to get everything situated so that we could begin the experiments tomorrow. The crabs had to be watered and numbered, and our experiment contraptions had to be set up. The experiment contraptions consists of circular florescent lights, mirrors, a compass, a fan, and lots of tubing and tubs, all hidden behind a curtain. We are testing to see whether hermit crabs respond to air-born smells. We have seven experiments to do on 150 crabs and it is going to take the entire day tomorrow. I am so excited!!
I am absolutely loving it here! The food is delicious, the people are friendly, and I even have happy little visitors in my shower (geckos!) I can't wait to see what the next week has in store!
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