Mangroves, boats, and a bat cave!

It's been an eventful two days. Yesterday we went to the Caribbean coast again, but instead of a rainforest, we walked through a mangrove forest. Mangroves, by the way, are trees that grow along the shore and are exposed to salt water. The soil of the mangroves we walked through was not currently submerged, but apparently it floods with the highest tides. Many mangroves also have very interesting roots, as shown here.

A section of mangrove forest on the Caribbean coast of Panama.

The shore itself looked like quite the stereotypical tropical paradise:

The shoreline.

We were right near the Caribbean opening of the canal which meant that many large ships were in view.

A ship emerging from the canal.

Although in some ways they ruined the beautiful natural view, it was interesting to me to see them all about evenly spaced but beginning to turn towards their own routes. Here are just a few, but there about ten ships on the horizon.

Post-canal ship divergence.

Don't worry, we also did work. We spent a few hours intensively collecting snail (making sure you've found all the 1-2 cm long snails in a 25 cm square quadrat is rather challenging), and then spent the whole evening dissecting them.

Today was both exciting and unexpected. We thought we were going to a lake to sample more snails to compare with previously sampled snails (specifically, the first day we sampled from a lake with a sport fishing industry that might be affecting the parasite life cycles, so this lake with a commercial fishing industry would serve as a comparison) and were told that we might have some time to look at a bat cave nearby.

So we arrived in an indigenous village and boarded two motorboats in which we were going to cross the lake. The lake itself, Lake Bayano, was very impressive. It's the second largest lake in Panama and man-made. The Bayano River was dammed in 1976 with a hydroelectric dam flooding a 350 square-kilometer region. Interestingly, there are still many drowned trees standing and providing perches for interesting birds (including egrets, multiple species of herons, and ospreys). I was surprised that they were still standing, but was told that the high pressure and anoxic conditions have preserved the wood somehow.

It was wonderful to be out on the water. I love boats, and it was a lot of fun. It was also a painfully slow crossing as our motor kept giving out. The other boat even towed ours to shore so we could switch out motors, but the next one wasn't much better.

There were a few houses where we unloaded, and there was a very sweet (and remarkably sleek and well kept) dog who led the way and was very friendly.

 The area was beautiful. Here is the opening just before the cave itself.

And then we entered the cave. At first we trudged through a little water and admired the rock formations.

Rock formations near the entrance of the cave.

And then we got to a point where the water was about neck-high. We placed our packs on the side and removed some layers, and I took off my boots (I had thought cave = hike = boots...well, not so much). And then we embarked on a (barefoot, for me) hike/swim through the bat cave. There were hundreds of bats fluttering about near the ceiling which was, in places, only a few feet above us. There are really no words to describe the cave, it was like something out of a movie. There were definitely some jokes made about Indiana Jones. Anyway, here's the one picture of the cave that I got before leaving my camera behind so it wouldn't get wet.

The view upward from the cave floor which was covered in flowing water.
This was one of the open parts, but much of the cave was covered and very dark.

The Causeway

Near the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal are four islands. Well, former islands. When the canal was built, the islands were connected to the mainland by a causeway which serves as a breakwater and prevents sedimentation of the canal entrance. One of these islands, Naos, is home to a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) facility. This was our destination today.

After a lecture on the role of parasite escape in invasive species by a STRI researcher, Mark Torchin, we walked down to a protected beach with some interesting wildlife. As we walked onto the beach, the most conspicuous wildlife were the pelicans. There were two of them fishing for food.

Scanning the water.

Both of the pelicans and an egret.

The next thing that caught my eye was all the subtle movement along the surface of the sand closer to the water. As it turned out, baby crabs had hatched and were covering the beach.

All those little white splotches are crabs that were scuttling around busily.

Adjacent to the sand beach was a rocky area with tide pools and a few mangroves. There were lots of snails, limpets, sea urchins, small fish, and crabs in the pools and it was fun to scramble over the rocks and explore the tide pools. There was also a cool flock of birds that was flying in tight formation, turning together on a dime with a flash of white as they banked and their undersides suddenly angled towards us.

The flock.

The white flash of the same flock.

Interestingly, before the building of the canal, the island was used to quarantine victims of malaria and yellow fever. Some of the pillars of the buildings still remain out on the rocky area near the tide pools.

It's been pointed out to us that it is particularly interesting to study parasites in Panama given the history of malaria and the Panama canal. When the French tried to construct a canal through Panama from 1881 to 1889, they failed in part because so many workers died due to malaria. The identification of the role of mosquitoes in the life cycle of malaria, however, helped in the implementation of appropriate preventive measures. (Which also means that malaria isn't a problem here and I don't have to take hallucinogenic malaria medicine, yay!)

The last two interesting sightings of the day were up from the beach in STRI's protected area. First, was an iguana:

One of my classmates tried to feed it a flower (which we saw it eating), and it moved remarkably fast. Then, as we walked out of the protected area we saw a two-toed sloth hanging upside down in a small tree. It was doing some interesting gymnastics and was very cute.

Snailing

There's probably no such word as "snailing," but we today's fieldwork involved looking for snails in mud in a way that reminded me of clamming (we even collected a few small clams in the process). It was harder than clamming, however, for two reasons. First, the snails are pretty small: the largest one we collected was still under 2.5 cm long. Second, we were in amongst rather dense vegetation, so we had to extract the mud from all the stems and roots. The snails that we were particularly looking at (Melanoides tuberculata) are native to northern Africa and southern Asia, and are invasive in Panama. Snails contain lots of parasites, so we bring them back to the lab to dissect and examine. I enjoyed squishing through the mud looking for snails, but the dissecting was more tedious. We crack the shell open with a hammer, extract the snail, and examine it for parasites and baby snails under dissecting microscopes. At least we don't have to feel too bad about killing the snails as they are invasive.

While we were still in the field, however, we also saw some birds including a Great Egret, two Ospreys, and seven Common Moorhens or Gallinules. The Gallinules have very distinctive red patches on their foreheads that particularly flash in the sunlight.

The Common Gallinule or Common Moorhen (Gallinula galeata).

Flashback 2: Wednesday

So Wednesday I was planning on going out into the field, but decided on Tuesday evening that I wouldn't have time to analyze all the data. So I stayed back and input lots of data (most people did this actually). Then, after those in the field finished up their work, we visited Fort San Lorenzo, a UNESCO world heritage site (also the ruins I mentioned in the picture from the canopy crane).

On the way there we drove into a clearing with some conglomeration of park offices. Someone came out and told us that the road was "broken." We all looked at each other and asked what that meant, and there was some talk of getting out of the bus if it was impassable. Then we reached the area in question and suddenly understood:

The "broken" road.

Apparently the rainy season can bring some pretty serious mudslides. Luckily, we were able to drive around on a dirt trail. Fort San Lorenzo was quite striking, though the ruins were in pretty poor condition. The fort was built in the 16th century to defend the mouth of the Chagres river, but it changed hands multiple times over the years.

The fort walls.

All the cannons were really quite impressive. Here are just a few.

One of several lines of cannons.

One of the cannons with a crest on it.

I also really enjoyed all the doorways.

And the stones themselves (and bricks interestingly interwoven, presumably due to the multiple building and rebuilding periods).

Then, after looking around we walked down the hill to a beach in a small cove where we swam for awhile. On a Wednesday. During class time. (But don't worry, Wednesday was followed by my 40-straight-waking-hours Thursday and Friday...)

The view from the northern fort wall looking out into the Caribbean
and the cove in which we swam.

So now I've pretty much caught up with myself. Tomorrow we embark on our next adventure: "Ecology and Epidemiology of Parasites and Infectious Diseases."

Flashback: Tuesday

After a good night's sleep I've spent most of today watching TV and sorting through pictures. Here are the ones from Tuesday.

Tuesday was my last day in the field. I had been planning on going out Wednesday as well, but there were so many butterflies on Tuesday that I realized I just didn't have enough time to input all the data and do my analysis (hence my all-nighter). At one of the sites I observed over a hundred butterflies in just 15 minutes.

The most common large butterfly in San Lorenzo: Anartia fatima or "Banded Peacock."

There were also some gorgeous flowers...

A papaya tree...

Papaya!

And lots of leaf-cutter ants...

Leaf-cutter ants carrying a ficus stipule.

The coolest thing, though, was that the howler monkeys were all vocalizing. I'm not sure if it was because it had rained a lot the night before, or what, but you could hear multiple groups calling back and forth all day. I stopped to watch three, but there were some nearby that I couldn't find among all the leaves, and others that were farther away.

I thought these were particularly cute as they reminded me of a totem pole.

I love the way their tails curl around whatever''s nearby.

There was one monkey family in particular that I spent a lot of time watching once I finished by field work for the day. First, I noticed a monkey up in a tree on one side of the road, and then I heard noises behind me and realized that a monkey had jumped down quite close to me. It was clearly the alpha male, and not entirely pleased with me being so close to his tribe. It wasn't really howling, but it was making noises seemingly to warn me not to cross him.

Being carefully watched by Dad.

 And then, as I photographed Dad, I noticed movement above. It was a mother and baby who, after some looks from afar, also came down to see what was going on. I spent a lot of time just watching them and taking pictures before walking back to the bus.

Mom and baby.

40 hours and counting...

So remember how I said it was great to have internet back? Well of course, yesterday afternoon as I was finishing inputting all my data and turning to identify my butterflies (using online resources), the internet went  out for the rest of the evening. It was pretty much the worst possible timing. It came back online at about midnight, but by then I had had to proceed with my analysis and writing. It took me all night, but I finished the report at 10 AM and the presentation by 11:30 (it was due at noon). And apparently I was at least somewhat coherent in my oral presentation itself, though I'm not sure what I said. So yeah, I've been up for the last 40+ hours and am now headed to bed. But I'm officially done with the first course of my semester!

On the last day of fieldwork (Tuesday) I managed to catch the elusive Morpho. This was also my questions slide for my presentation. (Photo courtesy of Ioana Chiver.)

 (I promise I'll tell you all about the rest of the week sometime...but I'm too sleepy now!)

A foray north: into a new rainforest.

I have returned to the land (house) of internet, lukewarm (as opposed to cold) showers, and air conditioning.  The first is perhaps the most exciting. While I'm generally perfectly happy to be away from internet, it's rather difficult to identify my butterflies (there are no printed guides of Panamanian butterflies, only a website of North American butterflies which includes Panama) and write my final paper (due at noon on Friday) without it.

The lack of internet has also kept me from the blog. Since the next few days will be spent working on data analysis and report writing, there won't be anything much of interest happening, so we'll just pretend that today is Monday...

We woke up for a 7 AM departure for San Lorenzo Protected Area. We drove north to the Caribbean coast and then turned west. This required crossing the canal. Although elsewhere there are large bridges which cross the canal, here we drove right over the lock, which meant first waiting for a ship to go through. Then, as we crossed, we could see water spewing from the canal through the lock.

San Lorenzo Protected Area, like Parque Natural Metropolitano, has a canopy crane (this one 50 meters tall):

The crane. Maintenance of some sort was being done, hence the man with the hard hat.

You could see Colón:

Colon is on the right.

And the Chagres River:

The Chagres River. On the far point to the right are ruins of Fort San Lorenzo,
 a Spanish fort built in the 16th century.

While we were up in the crane Yves, our professor (an entomologist), caught a horsefly that was trying to bite him, giving us a nice close-up:

Yves holding a horsefly.

Back down in the understory, there were some pretty cool spiders:

I loved the cross in the middle of this one.  It was shiny--more silvery than white.

Golden silk orb-weaver (genus Nephila).
"Golden" because of the color of the web.

And howlers!

Casco Viejo

This afternoon we explored the old section of Panama City, known as Casco Viejo. It's an interesting combination of old buildings, touristy shops and cafes, and pretty run down residential areas. Unfortunately, most of the attractions were closed as it was Sunday, but it was interesting to wander around the area. Besides the pretty buildings, the highlight was probably the delicious passionfruit sorbet.

The following are just a few glimpses of my day from my phone camera. Chhaya has better pictures, some of which I will probably post later, but I wanted to post something tonight as I will be MIA until Wednesday. We're working in another forest that is too far from Gamboa to commute, so we'll be staying there without internet access. This forest is in San Lorenzo Protected Area (9º17’N, 79º58’W) which is near Colon, on the Caribbean side of Panama. Out of our three field sites, this is the "wet" forest, meaning it gets the most rainfall annually. It'll be interesting to see how it differs from the intermediate and dry forests we've been working in!

Igelsia Catedral
(Catedral Metropolitana de Panamá)

Ruins near the canal.

Iglesia San Francisco de Asisi.

Monument for Bolivar and Panamanian
independence.