"Need to Get a Bond"

Dave came in yesterday, and to his surprise and mine too, he was stopped at Customs. The crime: bringing in an OLD video camera, a few of boxes videotapes, lizards poles, flagging etc. -- the same stuff we have brought every year for the last 5 years without any problems. Every day is a NEW day in paradise. You should have seen his face when the customs agent told him "that he needed to get a bond" to be able to collect his luggage. After a series of long discussions, which included multiple times being told he needed a special permit to do a "photo shoot," we were able to collect the luggage ... but not without paying a hefty deposit, 45% of the total value of the OLD pieces of equipment! One more permit to get next year, WAHOOO!!!!!

NEW TEAM IS HERE

The new team is here, and they are already having the famous Goombay Punch, from left to right, Dustin (Ball State University), Maria (Cornell University), Angie (University of Connecticut). Dave is also here, and because we will be here for a while, he decided to bring his exercise equipment, including a pilates ball.

First Chapter Done

JBL and Jason have moved to greener and taller pastures (e.g. Staniel Cay). Which means that the first part of my field work is done. A relatively successful week, we were able to sample all the islands and collected a respectable sample size, nearly 140 lizards. All the islands have a relatively healthy population of lizards and we are looking forward for our next survey in 2013. For me and the new members of The Chipojo Team (Maria, Angie, and Dustin) and the returning expert Dave the fun is about to begin. The team will arrive Monday. Stay tuned to meet the members of the group and the developments of our project.

Poll: What Is This Contraption Used For?

Poll: What Is This Contraption Used For?
The third generation of one of my gadgets, custom made to collect data in a precise and repeatable way.

DOBLE BLANQUEADA

Our leader has achieved a NEW RECORD. He has scored a BIG ZERO on two consecutives days. Yes, not a single lizard in hand. It should be mentioned, that over the last two days we have visited a total of 10 cays and he has come empty-handed every single time. We have been working on this project for 7 years and I don't recall such a poor performance by any member of the team during this time.

A Lesson From The Master

I have had some difficulties with the ethernet connection the last couple of days, which has resulted in no posting. Please take a look at the video, illustrating how a MASTER catches anoles. I have to say our record is much better than the outcome of this video. So far, we have captured over 100 lizards. From those individuals we have have taken morphological (e.g., x-rays) genetic, and dewlap specs (see picture) prior to returning them back to their respective "houses" safe and sound.

Back In Paradise

Today was my first day back in Snake Cay. This is going to be an exciting field season. It is the 4th year of the experiment and we will be collecting behavioral data for approximately 4 wks. In 2009 we collected 120 hours of focal observations, and the goal is get another 150 hours this summer. The data from 2009, suggest that A. sagrei was beginning to change his habitat preferences, due to the presence of curly tails. This year we will have the opportunity to see if the anoles have completely changed their habitat used.