Strawberry Poison Frogs

The strawberry poison frog (Dendrobates pumilio) is one of the most frequently seen charismatic creatures of the forest. The males call throughout the day in a sound that is like “eeh-eeh-eeh…”, which we’ve likened to winding a disposable camera, or the sound a sprinkler turning in a circle makes. Once I tuned into the sound, I am amazed at how frequently I hear it every day.

Of the three types of poison frogs here (in addition to the strawberry, there are the green and black poison frogs and the striped dart-poison frog), the strawberry poison frogs have one of the coolest reproductive systems I have learned about. Granted, I know very little about frogs. These tiny guys (only about 22 mm long) have biparental care- both males and females take turns caring for the babies. After a courtship period, the female lays eggs in a nest under the leaf litter and the male fertilizes them. The male tends the eggs, keeping them moist and guards them from other males (who may eat the eggs). Once the eggs hatch into tadpoles, they wiggle onto the female’s back and she carries them to tiny water pools that collect in the base of bromeliads or aroids (plants). She will deposit only one tadpole per pool, and returns every few days to lay unfertilized eggs in the pools containing her young, which they eat as they are maturing. Females are able to distinguish their own young, and will not provide eggs to feed unrelated tadpoles, even if they exhibit “begging behavior”. It takes between 43-52 days for tadpoles to transform into froglets, and they do not become sexually mature for another 10 months.

J.P. holding a frog. They are tiny!

Certain species of poison frogs have historically been used by South American human cultures to create poison tipped darts. The darts are rubbed across the back of a live frog, then used with blowguns. Not all of these frogs have been used to poison darts, though they are all commonly referred to as poison dart frogs.

Fun facts for the day! It's a lot of fun to learn about the animals we are seeing and hearing everyday, and it makes me appreciate them that much more.

Green and black poison frog, Dendrobates auratus. Photo by J.P. Drury

Ick

Feb 11

Tonight I had to kill the largest cockroach I’ve ever seen. It was dying in the shower, and I was so sweaty from hiking all day in the humidity I couldn’t ignore it (which is my usual tactic). It was pretty awful. Also, I have about a million mosquito bites and also potentially chiggers (according to JP). Working in the tropics can be really gross sometimes. 

sloth!

Feb 7.

Oh my gosh! I saw a sloth! Like a lot of other awesome things, it was just outside the field station. A few of the students saw it earlier today, just a big ball of matted fur up in a tree. I went out at dusk to help set up an experiment, and figured I should look for it on the way back. Sure enough, it was up and active (well, as active as sloths get), eating leaves and moving slowly in the tree. We had a little watching party- everyone standing around with their headlamps and binoculars. It was so fun to watch. Someone with a fancy camera and tripod got a good photo, suggesting it was a mom with her baby!

I didn't even try to get a picture, but I drew it instead :)

Nicaragua- Starting Out

February 6, 2013

It’s day 6 in the jungle! I’m in Refugio Bartola, Nicaragua- a gorgeous stretch of neotropical rainforest along the San Juan river, and just across the water is Costa Rica. It’s remote out here. There are a few ecotourists that have been staying at the field station, and a crew of locals who work here, but otherwise it is just our group. 15 students, 2 professors and their 2 children, and 2 of us teaching assistants. All of the students are working on research projects in pairs or groups of 3, and the rest of us are providing support and advice. That leaves me quite a bit of time to explore the forests, which is incredible. I’ve visited the rainforest before, but this is my first extended experience and there is so much to learn.

JP, my fellow teaching assistant, has been working in the rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica and Mexico on and off for the last 10 years and is an incredible source of knowledge. He’s also an avid birder, and for the first time I really feel like I’m learning how to watch birds (and how enjoyable it can be!). It helps that there are 400+ species of birds at this site, and most of them are beautifully colored, have pretty songs, and many of them are easily observed from the breakfast table.

In addition there are some pretty cool mammals, though they are much trickier to find and watch. Agouti, which look kind of like giant guinea pigs, run around in the grassy areas and the forest. There are a squirrels here too, which I’ve seen a few times. Same with the bats, though I am not good at all in figuring out which species I am seeing (usually it’s way too dark and they are too fast to tell). During a dawn hike we saw a skunk(!) on the trail. I had no idea they are out here, but there is no doubt it was a striped hog-nosed skunk. There are 3 types of monkeys in the forest. Howler monkeys are a natural alarm clock- they start calling at dawn, and it almost sounds like lions roaring. Spider monkeys are the most prevalent. They will come into the caimito trees next to the “hotel” area and eat fruit in the morning. We’ve seen quite a few babies in the canopy as well. White faced capuchins are the least conspicuous, but I was lucky enough to see a few of them foraging in the canopy a few days ago, just steps from the start of the trail behind the kitchen.

There are tons of reptiles and amphibians too- caiman (similar to alligators), a boa constrictor and baby fer de lance (a venomous snake) were found right near the field station. Lots of strawberry poison dart frogs, quite a few green and black and yellow striped poison dart frogs, anolis lizards, Central American whiptail lizards, and a ton of other things I don’t know much about. Not to mention the fish, the insects, and all the plants!! 

Nicaragua!

I just got home from a 3 week trip to Refugio Bartola, Nicaragua. I was working as a teaching assistant for a class of undergrads at UCLA. We didn't have internet there (we only had electricity for part of the day too), but I wrote some entries I will be putting up over the next few days. It was an amazing experience- waking up every day to the sounds of birds and howler monkeys, hiking in the rainforest, canoeing down a lazy river, discovering tons of new animals and birds and plants... It's nice to be home and catch up with my family and friends, take a hot shower(!!), and wear clean clothes. But it felt good to not have all the pressures of normal life- constant email access, a never ending to-do list.

Another year of adventures (Part II)

To continue my re-cap of the fun, local, and exciting events of 2012...

6. Weddings. It was the beginning of the rush of marriages I am bracing myself for in the coming years. Although I've never been a wedding obsessed kind of girl, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see friends I love find partners they love, and the weddings I went to this year were incredibly sweet and wonderful.

My roommates Ari and Keith get married with a bunch of UCLA-ers to celebrate

Laura and Ken's beautiful Los Angeles wedding 

5. SeaQuest. This was the slightly insane brainchild of Laura and Ken (see wedding above!). The thought was- we all spend a lot of time on the roads in LA, but who ever gets out and walks? So walk we did, from the farmers market near the center of the city, all the way to the ocean in Santa Monica. The 12 miles(!!!) brought us through West Hollywood with bottomless mimosas and great people watching, through Beverly Hills and happy hour on Rodeo Drive, past the one bathroom in the parking area in a swanky mall, through my neighborhood that I walk or bus through almost every day, down the final stretch of Santa Monica, and straight into the Pacific! It was totally nuts, but I think with almost a year to recover we are all ready to do it again.

My favorite photo of the day. We just passed under the 405 and were so excited, but some reason were convinced the picture would take a mirror image, so we are holding up our hands as "504". 

 4. New Mexico. Ok, so not really local at all. I presented a research poster at the Animal Behavior Society meeting in Albuquerque, NM this summer. I got to meet back up with Tina (who you probably know from Chile and months of picture of us eating ice cream) and my former advisor from Clark. The meeting was great, and then we had a couple of days to visit Santa Fe and Tent Rocks, which were amazing. It wasn't even close to enough time to explore this amazing state!

3. California Central Coast. I had never even heard of Cambria, but once I discovered it I want to go back as often as possible. A small town West of Paso Robles, I think it might be the most magical place on earth (sorry Disneyland). I went camping there with my department, and in the span of 72 hours saw sea otters, elephant seals, sea lions, seals, grey whales, and zebras (at Hearst Castle). It is also prime olallieberry land, and Lynn's in town makes an amazing olallieberry pie. Dave and I went back this fall and it was just as amazing as I remembered. Plus we discovered the otter hang out at Morro Bay, the beautiful camping at Montaña de Oro, kayaked in Lake Cachuma, saw monarch butterflies in Pismo, and spent a night in Solvang, a dutch town complete with windmills and lots of bakeries. Even though I've spent most of my life in this state, there is so much to see in California!

Watching a grey whale mother and calf migrate

tide pooling!

sea otters getting ready for the night

2. The Ellen Show. I know. This one is weird. Especially for me. The only two times I've seen the Ellen Show are when I was there for the filming of it. By chance, my roommate had tickets to go be in the audience one Tuesday. I was curious enough, and agreed to go. We saw Maroon 5 and got invited back for her "12 Days". At first we had no idea what it was "I can't come back for the next 12 days! I have work to do!" but slowly caught on that we got to come back for 1 day of her 12 Days of Giveaways right before Christmas. If you haven't seen the Ellen Show, this in insane. Everyone in the audience of those shows wins some sweet prizes- like over $2,000 in sweet prizes. I was incredibly fortunate, but this was totally a once in a lifetime, only in LA kind of experience.
This was me! -> http://www.ellentv.com/2012/12/14/its-day-10-of-12-days-a-trip-to-the-montage/

1. Pocket Mice! I made it through my first field season. I hit some roadblocks, got caught in a crazy downpour/flash flood, spent many many nights sleeping in a truck for a couple hours at a time, learned a whole lot, and got to finally meet the teeny tiny charismatic species I spend so much time thinking and learning about, the Pacific pocket mouse!

2012 was an amazing year, and these pictures and stories only scratch the surface of it. I did a lot, but I still don't know how the time passed so quickly! I hope that 2013 will be just as eventful and awesome, and I intend to document a lot more of it on here. Next up- a trip to the jungles of Nicaragua with a class I am a teaching assistant for! I think we are off to a good start ;)

Another year of adventures

In the 4 years I've had this blog(!), 2012 was clearly my most dismal for keeping up with things. TWO posts?! One about the narwhal?? Pathetic. It isn't for lack of things to write about. But it's been a whirlwind, and I have no idea where all the time is gone. It's been a different sort of year. I've had the same address ALL YEAR. It is also the first time in a long time I've gone a whole year without using my passport. I did get it renewed though- 10 years, 17 countries, and 50 stamps later :) But local adventures abound, and I wanted to share the highlights and hit the ground running for 2013!

12. Zip lining in the Redwoods of Northern California. You don't have to go to an exotic location to have an adventure! I spent the New Years with some of my favorite people in the quirky town of Guerneville on the Russian River and we zipped around the canopy of some of the tallest trees in the world! (At least, Redwoods are. These were still plenty substantial). Though it was cold and foggy most of the day, the sun came out, the setting was spectacular, and our guides from Sonoma Canopy Tours were top notch!

11. Harry Potter Marathon. We thought watching the first 3 movies was impressive in 1 night... but then we watched the final 5 in a non-stop, projected on the wall, home made pasties, butter beer, thai food filled day in my friend's living room. It was epic, and we will pretend that the dvd didn't skip during the final scene of the final movie where Harry finally defeats Voldemort... 

10. Snow tubing. A bunch of friends from UCLA bought a groupon type deal for snow tubing at Mt. Baldy, pretty much the closest snow to LA. It was an awesome day to feel like a kid again, snowball fights and all.

9. Pig-nic. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to pick up some equipment from my friend and colleague who was going to be at a picnic for her guinea pig fostering group. A pig-nic is more strange and wonderful than anything I had ever imagined.

8. Camera Obscura. My parents came to visit and we took a wander down at Santa Monica beach. I thought I remembered seeing a sign on a building about a camera obscura. This is an old school pinhole type camera on a large scale. The building has a tower with mirrors and a board that the image is projected onto. There is a wheel to turn the "camera" around a 360 degree view. It is an oddity, with the entrance through a senior center, and really felt like a hidden gem in the city.

7. Peddle Boating in San Francisco. It was one of those perfect, spontaneous days of being a tourist in your own city. Lunch at Outerlands (an excellent Outer Sunset "hipster casual" restaurant) was followed by a day in Golden Gate Park (partially inspired by my inept navigation and getting totally turned around in it). We rented a peddle boat on Stowe Lake, stopped to visit the herd of bison, saw the cherry trees in bloom, and fell in love with the city again.