Hoopin' it up and feeling the heat

Hi everyone-

Yes, I am finally getting my act together and posting again. It has been a busy month.

For one thing, I started playing basketball with the Bagaces mens team. I've been trying to do this for months, but kept getting misinformation about what time they practiced and where. Finally I learned that they practice Saturdays and Mondays from 7-9pm at the gymnasium so I went to check it out. I had a great time. These guys are fairly competitive, but not so much that I get my butt kicked. Actually, I fit in pretty well and they even asked me to play with them in some weekend games in the future. Since I don't really have weekends off, this might not work out. Still it's fun to think about!

And of course there's field work. The monkeys were fairly good at the beginning of the month. But by the end of the month they were sticking to a few species of fruit trees that all happen to be VERY tall, making it difficult to get any data. Still, I managed to conduct snake experiments on most days so I can't complain. But it did get HOT this month and by vacation time (right now) everyone is exhausted and braindead. The heat also caused the monkeys to stick close to the rivers. Since there are many monkey groups and not so many water spots this means more intergroups. An intergroup is when 2 monkey groups meet up at one location. Generally these monkeys do NOT want to share the space. So the stronger group (usually the one with more adult and subadult males) alarms at the weaker group and chases them away. This is a very exciting event...as long as you are with the winning group. If you happen to be with the losing group, you either sprint with the group up a cliff or lose the group because they sprinted up a cliff and wander around searching for them. Either way it keeps things interesting!


The Perils of the Forest

Rattlesnakes

Wasp Nests

The other day I was walking through the forest trying to keep up with the monkeys and heard my coworker gasp. It turned out that my other coworker and I had walked within 1 foot of the rattlesnake shown above without even seeing it. The coworker that was behind me only saw it because it moved its head back. I'm guessing it was even more scared of us than we were of it. This makes me wonder how often we walk by snakes in the forests without even knowing it. I guess this is why we wear snake leggings every day, just to be safe.

Although actually, my biggest injury/illness of the month had nothing to do with wild animals or anything you'd think of as a peril of a tropical rainforest. Yesterday, during my last day in the field this month, I tripped on a rock as I hurried to catch up with the monkeys. I fell really hard and banged my shin on a rock, causing a small gash. My shin swelled to almost 5x its normal size within 5 minutes. Since I spent the last 2 hours of the day worrying about my leg, I failed to notice that I was rapidly becoming dehydrated. Even though we hadn't moved much that day with the monkeys, I guess the heat and sun were intense enough to make me ill. When I started walking out of the forest to the car, I started getting a headache, feeling nauseous, and having intense intestinal cramps. Only then did I realize my mistake. During the 40 minute walk out, I started feeling sicker and sicker so I chugged lots of water over the next few hours. The nausea and headache continued all night, but I woke up feeling much better (and my shin swelling went way down). It is surprising that dehydration can be the most dangerous peril here!

And finally here are some more photos of my beloved monos!

Rambo's group

This group is very habituated and are not afraid to walk within a foot of humans on the ground. This day a bunch of them decided to have a massive grooming/play session in the middle of the trail.

Flakes group

Hanging out at Rita's farm

Heinrich, former alpha and typical scarred adult male

Boones, a massively pregnant female; her baby was born at the end of the month and named Bruce Willis in the hopes that it would not die as the majority of her babies have (i.e. 'Die Hard')


Rafiki's group

Baby Cayenne resting on babysitter Rushmore. Cayenne hurt both of her back legs, but has managed to keep on living despite the odds. She moves around the trees while partially using her back legs, but putting a lot of extra emphasis on her front legs. She has developed into an oddly disproportional monkey with a small head, massive shoulders, and small legs.

A pile of 3 monkeys sleeping together. Despite the heat, they sure love to snuggle!

Twilo, young adult male, sleeping

Now I'm off to renew my visa and have a small vacation in Nicaragua!