Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment in the Sapodilla Cayes

ants, morphos, and devices

I wrote the following a month or so ago but I feel like sharing it now because there are even more ants now than before! They are arriving en mass and invading our house! I jokingly asked Arlenie if it is now “ant season”, she thought I was serious and replied that “no, there is no season of the ant in Belize”. But seriously, they are everywhere in the kitchen now and I really don’t think our kitchen habits have suddenly or significantly changed in the last few weeks.

"Over 100 species of ants and termites are found within a square mile of average South American tropical forest. When all the animals in a randomly selected patch of woodland are collected together and weighed, from tapirs and parrots down to the smallest insects and roundworms, one third of the weight is found to consist of ants and termites. Between them they form the conduit for a large part of the energy flowing through the forest." Taken from E. O. Wilson’s book, Biophilia.

This weekend, I travelled to an ecoresort/soon to be private reserve, with Elma and her biodiversity class. Our charge was to work in teams to inventory the plants, insects, amphibians and reptiles, birds, and fungi. The goal of which was to both give students experience using identification keys and provide them with a hands on learning environment in which to explore taxa. The secondary goal was to provide the owner with an idea of the species present on his land.

Upon arriving, I began scouting out an ideal spot to hang my tent hammock. After some searching, I found the perfect 2 trees- each with the appropriate diameter and distance between them. As I stood there admiring the trees, I became acutely aware that I was being bitten. Not by the standard mosquito or a single sand fly but by about 30 ants, all at once. I was standing on an anthill. Fuck. There was no obvious water source nearby so off came the chaco’s, I commenced to madly swat at my feet, curse, and carry on with other swift movements associated with pain. While, I should add, about 5 students stood watching the spectacle. Fabulous.

There are ants everywhere here. The super fast tiny brown ones that always seem to invade the sugar and honey and partake in any, however minute, crumbs left on the kitchen table. Members of the same species often investigate my power mints (double strength altoid in the form of a hard candy) only to become trapped in the slightly sticky outer layer. Frozen in time like those insects encapsulated in sap which has become amber over the years. Then there is the giant variety that Steve and I saw on a palm trunk in Tikal. 1 inch long, black, with huge mandibles and white abdomens.

But by far my favourite species and probably the most charming (I haven’t been bitten by one yet) in the ant world, to a biologist that is, is the leaf cutter ant. Leaf cutters cut small irregular shapes of out leaves, carry them in the usual line back to their nest where the leaves are deposited. A fungus living in the nest feeds on the leaves and the ants in turn feed on the fungus. Symbiotic relationships are always fascinating to me.

Surprise ant nests abound. As Steve and I (mostly Steve) were working on the UB compost pile, I went to pick up a pile of misc. vegetative scraps that had accumulated outside of the shade house. It seems that an ant colony had found it quite the suitable habitat and took up residence there, which I recognized immediately by the stinging bites I received on my hands as I transferred the brush to the wheelbarrow. Bites on the hands are the worst, in my opinion. We left the pile for the ants.

A few weeks ago, I accompanied a group of students out to Calabash Caye to participate in a trash clean up. We ended up also doing a bit of landscaping by removing stumps of dead palms. The stump I chose had already partially decomposed and thus the outer layers peeled away easily. As I was carrying these palm remnants to the burn pile, I again became aware of the series of bites that can only be ants. These were larger though and black. Ouch!

Then there’s the commonplace cockroach carcass being consumed by a hungry hoard of ants and the usually ant lines to step across as one traverses trails cut into the bush.

In the butterfly breeding house we toured this past weekend at the ecoresort, ants had attacked, killed, and were devouring the blue morpho caterpillars in captivity. It takes almost 3 months for a spectacular morpho butterfly to develop from egg to adult and then the adult only lives for 3-4 weeks. They have a 5-6 inch wingspan on average. Morpho is a genus and so there are roughly 80 described species. The iridescent blue color of the morpho has become nearly a symbol of the neotropics, difficult to catch and a site that inspires.

''In all of the Neotropics there are few sights more spectacular than watching the flight of a male morpho lazily sail above the canopy of the rain forest or along a river on a brilliantly sunny day,'' wrote Philip J. DeVries in ''The Butterflies of Costa Rica and Their Natural History.''

















I digress, this is about ants. When one begins to anthropomorphize ants or any social insects such as bees, termites, or wasps, for that matter, all sorts of admirable analogous characteristics come to my mind such as cooperative living, effective and efficient means of communication, clear delineation of individual duties which contributes to the welfare of the larger community, and so forth.

But then the flip side is the (I just swatted one of the small ones crawling on my forearm) potential problems associated with obedience sans question or logic, conformity, and the lack of creativity, free will, or reflection. I think that I’ve heard some authors refer to this as “hive mentality”. I can’t seem to locate any of the passages or even recall the specific author(s) but I seem to remember an analogy between the ant line and conformity and so forth. I guess what I’m getting at…is that I don’t want to be an ant.

To address the photo below…background: people leave food out here more often than at home. If someone cooks up a dish at lunch time that they’ll also eat for dinner, they just leave it covered in a pan on the stove rather than putting it in Tupperware and the fridge. Below, you see Arlenie’s contraption designed to maintain her French toast ant free, that is a moat of water in the bowl. So far so good, it works, no ants. Yes, they make French toast here with evaporated milk and egg as the batter. I also heard someone say “oh-kee-doe-kee” the other day.

San Ignacio and the "Place of Ticks"

This weekend was interesting. I met up with Dennis, a retired American who bought land in Cristo Rey, near San Ignacio last year. He is just putting the finishing touches on his new home. He introduced me to his 1 year old papaya trees that are already fruiting and the mango, grapefruit, orange, cherry, mami apple, and chymeto trees that he has planted. Avocado trees came on the land already mature. Most of these fruit trees grow from seed to bearing fruit in less than 5 years. Very impressive.

I tried a new fruit, the mami apple. The outside has the rough brown appearance of the sapodilla (I think they are related as well), the inside color of a papaya, and the consistency of an avocado. Not as sweet as a sapodilla, as creamy as an avocado, or watery as a papaya but, not bad. I'll give it a 6 out of 10. The means that I'd eat it but probably not buy it.

Dennis dropped me off in San Ignacio where I had a wonderful Indian meal of coconut curried chick peas and a garden salad with balsamic vinegar, such a treat! I was drinking beers and reading a book at Eva's the popular gringo bar when a Rastaman, Lyrical King, sat down and introduced himself. He invited me to join him down the street for more beers and live music. We had a fine time. Oh, draft beer- Beliken still of course- for the first time in Belize, fancy.

Next morning, I hiked up to Cahal Pech, reminants of a Mayan royal family's estate dating back to 800 AD, I believe. This is Mayan land, 3 major ancient cities are within around a 10 miles radius of this minor site. My guidebook said it was a 20 min walk out of town, what it failed to mention was the grade of the walk, I'd say almost a 50 degree angle all the way up. It shouldn't have suprised me though, the royal family chose a great spot on the side of a mountain (lg hill?) with a fabulous view of the surrounding lowland/valley. When I got there...it was vacant sans the ground's keepers, a nice change to the crowd of tourists that one usually encounters at such sites. It was calming and refreshing to sit on top of the ruins alone in the morning and just listen and relax.

I headed back into town where I ran into Lyrical King again. He asked me if I wanted to join he and the wife/owner of Eva's Restaurant, Nettie, at the local cycling competition in Benque Viejo. Eva's had sponsored 3 young men competing in the race and Nettie wanted to bring them food and water and check on their progress. We saw her sister and nephews along the way and they all piled into the bed of the pick up truck with another little boy and I.

We went to the race. We found and followed 2 of the cyclists for a while in the hills near the border of Belize and Guatemala. The hills were fierce and they were many. As I've mentioned, the region is steep. And, it was hot, the tropical sun was relentless, heating flesh and metal leaving one thirsty and constantly in search of shade. Because the road is made of gravel and due to the lack of rain in this the dry season, we all had a thick layer of white dust covering us from head to toe when we got to the finish line. One of the boys sponsored by Eva's came in 1st and the other 3rd in their respective age groups/categories.

I was told that on a hot day, it is good to drink stout beer, as sort of a preventative measure or a treatment, I'm not sure which. So, they bought me a stout beer and fed me rice and beans. On the way back into town we stopped on the Mopan River and swam. I didn't have my swim suit with me but I could not resist the cool water and the chance to wash off the dust so I jumped in with my clothes on. Very refreshing. The water is a beautiful dark green in the deeper areas. Just below the rapids, you can sit in the natural jacuzzi, really fabulous. I watched the mestizo women washing their clothes in the River and the men fishing with hand lines. I felt conflicted as I watched the women adding all that phosphate (soap) to the water, knowing of its effects on riverine life, while at the same time acknowledging that their ancestors did this for generations and plus, it looked like a nice Sunday family event on the River.

Almost soaking wet, I hailed a taxi back into San Ignacio so that I could catch the last bus out of town to Belmopan.

So, a good weekend. I probably would have hung out more in San Ignacio if I had known what it had to offer sooner but then I would have spent a lot of money there too which sometimes, is impossible in Belmopan (good). I bought some Guatemalan crafts, a pastry at the French bakery, an iced coffee at the German bakery, and, as I had mentioned, good Indian food and draft beer. ahh....the good life.

baby oil?

While at the Agricultural Fair last weekend, I purchased some "massage oil for spiritual cleansing" a H'men Mayan Remedy with ingredients listed as oil and Mayan medicial plants. uh...it smells remarkably similar to baby oil....and contains no greenery...$10BZ.

At the birthday party last night we played truth or dare spin the bottle style. After witnessing Julie demostrate her blow job techniques on a beer bottle and my friend Nick strip tease down to his drawers, both resulting from dares, I chose truth and was asked if I've ever been with a woman.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to join the Kay-Martinez family for their Saturday pancake breakfast ritual. Then, I'm going to visit an intentional community near Cayo tomorrow. Should be interesting to see their set up.

I'm getting excited about the reef monitoring/training in the Sapodilla Cayes. There are a lot of people from various NGO's and government agencies participating, we'll all go through the training together on one of the Cayes near Belize City and then split up into smaller teams with specific sites to monitor along the reef. I'll get to meet a lot of the marine conservation movers and shakers, it will be a good networking opp for me. There's a new job opening in one of the NGO's, Earthwatch, and the director is on my monitoring team.

My summer flight arrangements are mostly complete. I'm giving myself 9 days to travel around Argentina after the internship. I'll be staying in a very scenic part of the northwest during the internship so, depending on how much I see while I'm there, I may explore Jujuy and Salta for a couple of more days. Otherwise, for sure I'm going to check out Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, and maybe Valle de Luna. The country is huge and I feel a bit overwhelmed when I go on line to search for bus durations, schedules, etc. I don't have a travel guide with me here so I'm just going to wait, talk to the Argentines that I'll be working with and go from there. I'd love to see some of the glaciers in the south but it's winter time so, nah.

I'll pull into St. Louis 25 July and depart for Florida to see my parents around the 13 August, then back to Belize on 21 August. Something like that. I've decided that I'll stay for 2 months looking for a job. If I find something, fantastic, I stay. If I don't....well....you'll probably be seeing more of me. FYI: Blues Cruise on 3 ? August (a thurs for sure). Soulard Blues Band, I'm in.

Birthday Party

Banana Bank and Spanish Bay Class Trips and the Agricultural Fair