Lemurs!
(posted June 7, backdated to May 23)
I'm down in Florida right now, at the Lemur Conservation Foundation in Myakka. There's a primatology field school my advisor recommended to me, so I decided to give it a shot.
First of all, I am TIRED. We've been going pretty close to nonstop. What little free time I've had has taken up by readings and cleaning up my notes. I've also been spending a lot more time standing or walking than I'm used to, sometimes four or five hours at a time. My feet hurt.
It's been overcast or raining the whole time we've been here. It's actually a really good thing for the area. They've been in a drought for four years. It's weird seeing ponds that were dry when we got here half full again after only a few days. Almost nobody brought rain boots, and a lot of our other rain stuff was not that great either, so everybody got soaked the first time we got caught in a downpour. I've borrowed some rainboots that come up almost to my knees now, and a better rain jacket, and of course we haven't had that heavy a rain since. Still, the rain boots were necessary. There's still standing water five or six inches deep some places in the forest, and my hiking boots still aren't dry from Wednesday. (These are waterproof boots. They got wet when water soaked through my camo pants and ran down my legs directly into the opening. I poured water out of them. And I've sent them through the dryer twice.)
So, complaints? Yeah. But then there's the lemurs. I've got some pictures that I'll share when I get back and get them off my camera, but suffice it to say that they're adorable. Most of the ones here are about the size of a cat (and the red ruffs are one of the biggest lemurs--the whole clade is pretty small.) A bunch of photos are already up on facebook from other people. Look for pictures of me, then if it looks like I'm in a forest full of lemurs look at the albums they're in.
I'm down in Florida right now, at the Lemur Conservation Foundation in Myakka. There's a primatology field school my advisor recommended to me, so I decided to give it a shot.
First of all, I am TIRED. We've been going pretty close to nonstop. What little free time I've had has taken up by readings and cleaning up my notes. I've also been spending a lot more time standing or walking than I'm used to, sometimes four or five hours at a time. My feet hurt.
It's been overcast or raining the whole time we've been here. It's actually a really good thing for the area. They've been in a drought for four years. It's weird seeing ponds that were dry when we got here half full again after only a few days. Almost nobody brought rain boots, and a lot of our other rain stuff was not that great either, so everybody got soaked the first time we got caught in a downpour. I've borrowed some rainboots that come up almost to my knees now, and a better rain jacket, and of course we haven't had that heavy a rain since. Still, the rain boots were necessary. There's still standing water five or six inches deep some places in the forest, and my hiking boots still aren't dry from Wednesday. (These are waterproof boots. They got wet when water soaked through my camo pants and ran down my legs directly into the opening. I poured water out of them. And I've sent them through the dryer twice.)
So, complaints? Yeah. But then there's the lemurs. I've got some pictures that I'll share when I get back and get them off my camera, but suffice it to say that they're adorable. Most of the ones here are about the size of a cat (and the red ruffs are one of the biggest lemurs--the whole clade is pretty small.) A bunch of photos are already up on facebook from other people. Look for pictures of me, then if it looks like I'm in a forest full of lemurs look at the albums they're in.