NSF-EID Lyme Gradient Project

Friday, August 24, 2012

Questing nymphal blacklegged ticks

Friday, August 10, 2012

Fort McCoy-August 2012

Another successful trip to Fort McCoy. This time we brought along our bird bander, Nate. Not many birds were netted, but some of them did have ticks!!!! We also saw a few young medium mammals. This little opossum was very cute :). This mole was enjoying the refugia in one of our pitfall buckets and was happy to return to her tunneling when released.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

North Carolina at 98F - whew!

The only critters stirring (other than silly us) are the ones that get to cool off in the swamp...

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Predatory ant investigations, TTRS

Monday, July 2, 2012

Goodness...gracious...great balls of fire!

It's HOT out there!!!! Trap Phase 23 was quite successful. Many new captures joined the study this trap session. We caught several young animals, as well as several breeding male animals. This was the biggest vole we have seen yet....and even though he had small ears (could barely get a sample), he made up for it in other areas. Needless to say, he was quite active in the bucket during our processing time. Also pictured is a sorex spp. shrew next to a 1.7 mL MCT tube. Pretty neat little guys and they are loaded with ticks here in Wisconsin-this one had over 2 dozen larvae attached!!! Hard to believe they can endure that much blood loss. Also pictured is a Western Ribbon Snake caught near one of our cameras. Lastly, we are seeing ticks questing in the tick gardens, despite the midwest draught and high temps. Over and out!