Caye Caulker (final Belize shots!)

After two weeks at Hillbank field station we ran out of tropical plants to identify and were forced to go to Caye Caulker, a little island off the coast of Belize, to study some algae for a day.


If you're going to end up in jail, this is probably a good place to do it.

'Nough said

We headed out in a boat to go snorkel... I mean, to study some algae up close like the good botanists that we all are.

Bromeliad offering. Who could resist?

Whizzing by Mangrove forests to head back to Belize City.

Lamanai (Belize Part IV)

Half way through our field course we were treated to a day off and a trip to Lamanai. Lamanai was once a Mayan city, building started in 200 BC and part of the site was still occupied by Mayans when the Spanish arrived in the 1700s.

A whole bunch of nature nerds at the Rain Temple.

We had a fun boat ride down the New River Lagoon to Lamanai.

Strangler fig

This carving on the Mask Temple is currently being replicated in fiber glass by some local archeologists. Once the replication is done, the real one will be covered up again as it isn't durable enough to be exposed to the elements.

The archeologist's mode of transport.

Mycelia

The Rain Temple

Climbing the Rain Temple - it was impressively steep, especially considering the average Mayan was about 5 ft. tall.

View from the top. The Orange Walk district of Belize is fairly flat, so we could see a long way off.

Smiling Lizzie

Rosey the zoologist watching some howler monkeys.

Howler Monkeys

The Jaguar temple

The church in the village of Indian Church.

Hibiscus

Sprouting coconut

Exploring the Savanna (Belize Part III)

We spent four days out in the savanna doing transects and plots in various vegetation types. I've always thought of savannas as very dry places, but this definitely wasn't the case here.

Waiting for the canoe in the "Swamp of Despair". The first day we got a short canoe shuttle and then walked much of the way through thigh to chest deep water. It was actually pretty fun, or so I thought. Not everyone agreed.

The trail/canoe route.

In past year's students have apparently been able to walk this section without getting their feet wet. Two weeks of hard rain right before we arrived made the lagoon level rise by over a metre.

A bromeliad (pineapple family) growing on a shrub.

Somehow when there are palms on your transect, it doesn't feel like work.

We spent a day doing some forest plots in this pine and oak savanna. It felt a lot like the Okanagan back in BC.

Another bromeliad, this one growing on a caribbean pine.

There was a patch of thick, wet, royal palm forest growing in the middle of the pine savanna, so we did some more plots. It was one of my favourite forests, partly because it was so unexpected.

You don't need long-arm pruners when Frederico is in your group.

Unidentified poop.

Alex, our soil pit digger. We found a metre of peat sitting on top of some black clay in here. The pine forest that was about 300m from here was all coarse sandy soils.

Belize part II - Wanders around the Field Station

A lot of our field work was a canoe/swamp walk from the field station, but we also spent a lot of time wandering in and around the field station collecting plants to i.d.

Forest trail

Apocynaceae flower (milkweed family).

Epiphytic Cacti

An acacia shrub. The thorns are hollow and are home to biting ants that protect the tree from herbivory.

In exchange the ants get some lipid-rich beltian bodies that can be seen growing at the tips of these leaflets.

A Solanaceae flower (potato family).

We each collected 3-5 herbarium specimens that will be sent to various herbaria, including the one here in Edinburgh. If they arrive in time we'll get a chance to mount them as well. This was my first specimen: Cissampelos pareira, part of the Menispermeaceae family. I'm rather fond of it's fuzzy heart-shaped leaves.

Mini, green Cissampelos flower.

Funky fungus

One huge palm leaf.