Monday, April 2, 2012

TTRS: what's happening?

Lots of activity at TTRS in the last few days....

Thursday, 3/29/12: Monitoring Gena's tick life cycle tubes: We found several I. scapularis larvae had hatched and were questing! This was only for the deer-fed moms; none of the rabbit-fed moms' progeny had hatched....we'll be looking out for those!
Friday, 3/30/12: After hearing that Gena had received a NSF graduate fellowship (yay!), another fortuitous event occurred: Cody dragged what looks to be an I. scapularis nymph!!! (You can compare with the larger males in the same tube.) This would be something like the #14 nymph collected after dragging ~45 km here since last April!


Sunday, 4/1/12: At our Hammock site, Cody dragged another nymph! But, this time of a different species....any guesses? Then back at the truck, a little green anole was catchin' some rays on our truck! Say hi to Cody! After dragging for ticks, we went lizardin' at NB66. Caught some broadheads with nymphs attached. Here's a photo (upon release) of the world from the view of a broadhead in the leaf litter.


Monday, 4/2/12: Cody and fellow herper, Tom Radzio, and I went lizardin' again, this time at Hammock. Cody and Tom: 5; Jean: 1! Tom studies gopher tortoise behavior at the Wade Tract! Cody found a larval tick on a broadhead as well as several ticks attached to 3 eastern fence lizards!!!

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