I recently went to Puerto Rico for a bat conference. This was my first time leaving the country.
day before I left: took jake and sydney to the park to play.
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Day 1:
after a 5 hour flight, I was in the tropics - tons of palm trees!
1 hour after the plane landed - I left on the bats and boas tour in the rain forest/old agriculture area.
harp trap set up and ready to catch some bats!
this is a hot cave - temperatures range from 30-40oC. there are about 3000 bats living here, from multiple species (we caught 6 species from here)!
he's mad. I am not sure which species this was..
sooty moustached bat! (Pteronotus quadridens)
Antillean Ghost-faced Bat (Mormoops blainvillii)! The ears are so big, that the eye is actually almost at the centre of the ear.
and I got to hold the bats! woo!
one of the boas (by the tree limb coming in from the bottom right) is eating a bat!
this bat was very sweet! Brown Flower Bat (Erophylla sezekoni bombifrons)
coqui frog: these are one of the iconic animals from puerto rico - there are a few species and they have different calls, but all make a 'kookee' sound - and you can hear them in the forest and the city
Winston, one of the researchers, teaching us how to sex a mormot species - the females and males can be hard to distinguish!
Antillean Fruit Bat (Brachyphylla cavernarum)
On the walk back to the research station:
tiny lizard!
cane toad! they are huge, I had no idea. They also have poisonous glands on their heads - apparently hippies used to lick them to get high.
this is a crown anole up in the canopy. generally anoles are characterized by being tiny, yet this one was probably a foot long.
This bat was caught in the 30 ft mist nets set up on the roof - these bats were foraging in the canopy, and are not found in the hot cave. Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artibeus jamaicensis)
The researcher told us we would never see this bat again - it's quite a rare catch. this is a Red Fruit Bat (Stenoderma rufum), which can be easily identified by the white patches on the shoulders.
crown anole again - they went and got him out of the tree..
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Day 2: exploring old san juan
above: old forts used to defend while it was still a spanish colony
tree by the water - amazing air roots. below: iguana! apparently they are introduced here and flourishing!
there are so many stray animals here - dogs and cats. it's really sad. this guy seemed to be living at the fort and was in good condition.
old cemetery - I think this had to do with the wars that occurred here over the years.
EVERY single property was fenced and there was often barbed wire along the tops of fences. even school yards, personal residences - everything.
the police station. there were police on every block in tourist areas
walking back - the bridge connecting old san juan (it's a small island) to the rest of puerto rico
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Day 3:
sail boat in the dungeon of a fort - thought to be drawn by a captain which was held there until he was hanged.
view from one of the look outs used to spot enemy ships coming in
another iguana! so many here
budgie like bird but wild? pretty darn cute.
this was in a art gallery - a stray cat nursing her kittens.
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Day 4: Ziplining in a second growth rain forest
climbed up a water fall
old coffee plants from when this area was farmed - roobios kind instead of the typical arabic grown on the island
many epiphytes!
mahogany tree I believe
plants with this leaf pattern are edible! many of the berries here are purple or blue, so you have to look at the leaves to see if they are edible.
flower of a ginger plant! very cool, these were everywhere since they used to farm ginger here.
ferns here can grow up to 30 feet high!
leaves with serrated edges - sometimes used by locals to put on fencing if they can't afford barbed wire.
african tulip tree? or something like that, it's invasive but has beautiful red flowers.
lemon.... can ID citrus trees because the leaves have tiny 'wings' before the leaf
witch plant ... antibiotic properties.
the man who owned the property where we ziplined - his house was basically open to outside, all you need is a roof and you're set
banana tree!
he was a carpenter and built everything on site
these are the conditions the roosters are kept in - he breeds them for cockfighting because that's still legal in puerto rico - terrible to see.
religious figures all over properties - very large christian influence here
he had two jeeps - as most people here do. above is the one driven on sunday - it has a cooler in the back for alcohol
below is the saturday jeep - it has a chair in the back for children. saturday is family day here, whereas friday and sunday are party nights.
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Days 5-8
last night at the hotel. 3 days of lectures indoors and basically no sunshine. sweaters had to be worn because the air conditioning is always cranked.
I learned a lot, presented my poster, had some great feedback, met some batty people. even met other veggie folks to go find veggie food with! had lunch with a great prof, learned a lot about grad school. It was really amazing to see that there are other people out there that are so interested in bats - makes you excited to go do more research so you can share cool stuff with them!
great experience. the flight back - ah, there was uh... a hurricane in the way, delayed flights, missed connections, had to get out of philadelphia before the storm struck so ended up flying through toronto. made out better than others - some were 'stuck' in puerto rico for a few more days, but aside from the price, I wouldn't have complained too much, but I was way too excited to see jake.
"Not all who wander are lost" - Tolkien
