Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Níspero

Number of Ticks Removed To Date: 17
Days Since Tick Removal: 0

After taking the weekend off, I needed one more day of data with the South Group this month. Yesterday I scoured every inch of that forest but couldn’t find them anywhere. I thought for sure they must have gone away somewhere to some seasonal patch of food, like how when the North Group took the secret corridor down to the road for Chaperno flowers. After all my fruitless searching, it seemed like I wouldn’t find them again until they were good and ready to come back from wherever they had gone.

This morning I headed back out, not expecting to have any luck. Since they hadn’t appeared to be anywhere in the forest near sunset last night, it was doubtful they would be back at dawn this morning. But miraculously, they were right there at point U-14, in a big tree they like to sleep in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Uno was there, so it was undeniable. As I stayed with them throughout the day, I realized why I hadn’t found them yesterday. They went up the mountain into areas where I’d never seen them before. In some places, there were remnants of really old trails, and in other areas there were no trails at all. What they were after was the juicy, ripe fruit of the Nispero (Manilkara ) tree. They visited 3 different giant Níspero trees throughout the day and stuffed their little faces with the fruit. Seriously, they got the stringy fruit all over their faces, but they didn’t do anything about it, so they just sat there all day with food-faces. Actually, it was pretty hilarious. The best part was that by the end of the day, they went full circle and headed back to the U trail, where I’m sure they were planning on sleeping in their favorite tree.

So the South Group is becoming more interesting than ever. Before, I thought that other groups of monkeys up the volcano kept the South Group pretty much trapped to the lower elevations of the former coffee plantation—where the trees are all shrubby and in the early stages of regeneration. I also thought that the South Group’s apparent restriction to this territory would result in their having a poor quality diet with very little diversity. But today the South Group demonstrated that when the time is right, they can make a jaunt up to where the trees are tall and the fruit is ripe for the picking. I’ll be interested to see how this all turns out. Until later then!

5 Comments:

At 6:08 PM, January 31, 2007, Blogger Jodi said...

Is that 17 ticks removed FROM YOUR OWN BODY?

See, this is why my research takes place inside lovely museums in places like Paris, Berlin, London, and Rome.

Oh yeah. And because of the tarantulas. (I'm doing a little "oh-my-god-I'm-just-so-grossed-out" dance just thinking about those.

 
At 8:52 PM, February 01, 2007, Blogger Melissa said...

Ha ha ha. I only count the ones that I actually have to pull out; a lot of times I flick them off before they actually dig in. Sometimes Rob has to pull them off of me, especially if they are on the back of my neck which for some reason they really like. I don't think I will put on grease or lard... that sounds like it might attract something worse than ticks?

Anyway, a lot of times I think it would have been preferable to do a dissertation project that involved museums, but alas. I've only seen three smallish tarantulas in the forest, and I've never seen any around the field station (When I was in San Ramon during my pilot study, there was one that lived in my bathroom....scary....) I've only seen 2 live snakes out in the forest. One of them was sleeping, but just last week I actually saw a quite beautiful snake moving along the trail as I was watching the monkeys. I've seen a few ROUS's (Rodents of Unusual Size-- I think they are agoutis) and one time I actually saw a deer.

 
At 11:27 PM, February 01, 2007, Blogger Jodi said...

What about in your hair, Melissa? This bears repeating: sometimes they're IN YOUR HAIR. (I'm having squeely flashbacks to a PSAP project in southern Indiana.)

And smallish tarantulas are STILL TARANTULAS. (I'm doing the dance again. And now my body feels all itchy.) Oh my god. Look at me. Just thinking about ticks and tarantulas is making me USE ALL CAPS!!!!

Snakes are pretty. So are big rodents. But watch out for those deer. I was attacked by a deer once (on the same archaeology project in southern Indiana. It wasn't a good week, that one ;)

 
At 7:22 AM, February 05, 2007, Blogger amypfan said...

I feel like I should comment on the South Group's behavior, but all I can think of is "Ticks? What ticks? Why is she not telling us about the ticks?" You may remember my one and only experience with pulling a tick out of my own body, which was in South Dakota when I found it latched onto my side while in the shower and screamed pitifully for Tracy. It seems that you are handling this far better, but still, YIKES. (I'm with Jodi - ticks and tarantulas seem to require all caps)

 
At 8:52 AM, February 10, 2007, Blogger Melissa said...

Jodi, I do remember hearing of your encounter with a deer during an archeaological expedition, and now I will take care to be especially careful if I ever see one again. But still, given the choice, I would much rather run into a deer than a tarantula.

Amy, I just saw your comment and now that you mention it I remember your tick incident in South Dakota. Actually, that was very similar to my first tick incident here. The tick was on the back of my neck and I could feel it but did not know what it was, so I screamed for Rob and he removed it. Some 20 ticks later now, I usually just remove them myself.

Thanks so much for the comments guys, it really keeps me going!

 

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