Day Uno

Piercing an iguana's nuchal crest to add colored beads is a time-honored technique to mark individual animals. To use social network analysis tools, individual ID is a must. However, iguanas of all sorts are fascile in removing said beads -- so every trip begins with a few trapping days. 

It's quite interesting how willing Ctenosaura similes is to enter a trap for some fruit. In this very end of dry season (rains are late), fruit is likely an amazing food find. 

Also, iguanas are both disappearing and new ones join the group -- so in the 16 caught during my first full day, 4 are new to the study. Known animals are generally more useful for my questions about social structure and usually they are where I expect them to be -- same local area, same refuge and previous 6 months. Stability is important for this species.  

Breakfast for humans is 6:30; by 7:30 all traps are set and baited, and I wait for the iguanas to warm up enough to start their day. In the meantime there are the howler monkey and parrot seranades, the mosquito attacks, and the great pleasure of field work. But don't get me wrong: it's all for SCIENCE!

Vanity? No! Safety!

A large male caught today managed to give me a nice bite. Yes, iguanas have teeth! I was wearing gloves but he managed to grab my wrist. Lucky, Fitbit took the brunt, iguana processed in under 15 minutes, and within hour, out grazing again. A good day!

Iguana Toast Chronicles will not kill you!

FID, NO, OFT

Not diseases but in situ personality testsfor animals: Flight Initiation Distance, Novel Object, and Open Field Test.

Green is the New Dry....

In the sense that since arrival, and many days beforehand, there has been no rain. Palo Verde looks like my Colorado home in the summer: green but on the edge of yellowing out from lack of rain and copious sunshine.

New ~2 year old C. similis.

Still green enough to eat!

This trip is short and simple -- trap iguanas, collect blood, collect parasites, and try out network analysis data collection protocol. Trapping comes first as the animals must be known as individuals to create the network.

I've spotted most of my known animals -- always a fear that they have absconded in my absence and a huge relief to see that was a false worry! However, there are a number of new animals that must be added to the network.

I won't join the marked animals until I live at least another year!

Lack of rain is detrimental to Palo Verde -- but behaviorally, iguanas are doing much the same as they also do -- up and active when the sun is out, and siesta during cloud cover. At least some things are predictable!

Summer 2014: Green Season

Traps bring out defensive behaviors in C. similis.

Count them -- seven days until I hit ground: Palo Verde National Park, Organization for Tropical Studies' Research Station. Iguanas and, I'm told, a few mosquitoes. It's Green Season, not a vacation. #100dayssummerscience finally back to lizard behavior!

This trip will ground-truth a network data collection protocol, sweeping through the site, building up interactions, understanding the connections iguanas have to each other. It will be good to see known and new iguanas -- the study animals, their haunts and preferential associations.

I'll be joined by a colleague who is interested in C. similis parasites -- internal and external. We'll be collecting various samples and profiling occurrences in this population.

But first, packing, and the usual last-minute insanity that structures all field work!

Resistible Trampa! or, Love is in the Air....

How do I catch iguanas? With a good old humane wire trap. Each day after breakfast, I 'steal' fruit from the morning's platter -- pineapple, or papaya, or bananas, or watermelon -- they are all good for enticing a black iguana into a trap. But it's not fool-proof. Sometimes there is simply too much activity near the trap, or the commotion has sprung the trap empty.

Female coming down Big Tree captures male's attention.

 Other times the lovely female nearby is far more interesting than fruit. The next few photos show a smaller male (eventually caught, beaded, and PIT tagged) showing his beauty to a not-completely convinced female, WOG. Interestingly, he displayed as if ready for battle -- lateral compression, elevated on his legs, colors very pastel. Can't you see how big and beautiful I am?!!

She soon gave the male a low-key whip with her tail. Not the tail strike that could communicate "Not even if you were the only male on a deserted island," but one that suggested, "Not yet -- try me again in a few weeks." It is, after all, only the beginnings of mating season. Courtship has its purposes!

Male displays and approaches female.

First female leaves but second female comes down and the male is all eyes.

 The male gets another try with a second female who comes down Big Tree.

His display is acrobatic!

He even gets a leg on her body....but she soon gives him a "no-go" tail whip.