Day 6: Cavemen:
Today we woke up
with the sun again…this is becoming an unwelcome habit for me. And we were off
to check our Sherman traps for the last time.
Lo and behold, we had caught something .
Seemed rather suspicious that the animal we caught happened to be right
after we watched Boris walk quickly into the woods alone, and it happened to be
on the first trap near the trail, and it happened to be the common house
mouse. For the love of learning, I firmly
believe Boris planted that poor animal there so that we could learn how to
study it and release it properly.
However, if he did it, he wasn’t going to admit it under my prying.
After breakfast,
we headed in to the Chiquibul cave system. This is something I think all of us
were pretty excited about. Approaching the cave was really cool and we got a
glimpse of our first bat rather quickly. Boris told us a bit about the cave
systems in Belize and told us that the water we use at Las Cuervas Research
Center comes from that very cave. That totally made me understand a little
better about why those were some of the coldest showers in all the land. The
inside of the caves were really cool and included some creepy, dark, tight,
spots that we crawled through. I was
amazed to see that things were able to live back in there. Creepy crawlies and
fungus that looked like silk were throughout the caves. One thing that I found disappointing was that
some people had entered these ancient caves and wrote their names and dates on
the rocks. I mean, who goes into an ancient Mayan cave deep in the forest in
Belize and thinks it would be neat to deface the cave?!!?
After the caves,
we had the rest of the day free. And by “we” I mean everyone who wasn’t doing a
project. So, Alex, Michelle, Boris and I went right back out to name and climb
some trees. Oh and to measure density of course. And guess who found us?? Yes
that’s right, our new found friends, the African bees.
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