Tick Gardens in RI

A few more Tick Garden photos....

The Rhode Island Site

We had great weather for this round of Tick Garden installations. One more site to go!!!!
Thanks to Howie, Eric, and friends for making this possible. Note: Rock wall in background of RI photos....its a New England thing :)

Composite coon, and red wolf, at MNWR ...

Here's a 3-shot trailcam sequence, composited into a single image of a roaming racoon at our North Carolina site.

And here's a red wolf, complete with radiocollar:

Cody's last day at TTRS

Today was Cody's last day at TTRS. He left for SRS this afternoon to take over for Kaety, who is going to finish up her masters this summer (yay!).

Cody, thanks in particular for:
- developing another way to capture skinks in addition to noosing them;
- holding down the fort after Gena left;
- for showing me the ropes and being patient with all my questions and criticisms;
- and for sharing yummy meals (including Appalachicola oysters) and interesting discussions.

Cody - have tons of fun in your new woods! We hope you learn lots about herps from all those knowledgeable people at SRS, bust out on the extra skinky projects, and please answer the phone/reply to my e-mails when I have questions about stuff back here at TTRS!!!

See photos below of Cody outside his shack and with Copernicus in their stuffed vehicle as they departed for SRS!

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!!!

NSF EID Principal Investigators Meeting

We had a lot of fun catching up with friends and colleagues at the annual NSF EID PI meeting (oh, and learning lots about disease ecology and evolution, too). This year, it was in Berkeley. Here are a few photos, and we'll post more when they are sent to us!


Here I am with Beth Carlton. Beth was an undergrad whom I "mentored" back in the early 2000s. Despite how I may/may not have messed up her tick drop-off experiment, she's now an epidemiologist working on a schistosomiasis project in China! ;)


Another photo shows how we were graced with the presence of Dan Salkeld. Dan worked on Lyme disease in the California system. In addition to Dan, we were able to meet several of the California/Berkeley crew - Yvonne Girard, Kerry Padgett, Esther Olsen, and Lars Eisen. We missed, Bob Lane, however!

Florida: More hosts and ticks

An eastern woodrat with a tick two weeks ago (March 13) and two broadhead skinks with ticks from today (Mar 22).

Florida: Eastern Fence Lizard & a Tick!!!

No cricket necessary! Cody plain ol' noosed this big male!

Cody's Cricket Method for Luring Skinks

Works like a charm - most of the time! ;). Cody also has a noose tied onto the end of the fishing pole in case you want to switch methods. He says the best way is to get them to jump at the cricket so that they aren't gripping to anything (like a tree trunk). So, he recommends luring them down off the tree onto the leaf litter, where they really don't have much to grip onto. Key partner tool is the bucket into which you place the skink once you have hooked it. (Note: we put the skinks into separate bags: they are shown side by side here in a bucket to show possible different sexes.)

Gena's Florida Tick Life Cycle Arenas: Go, Mama, go!

On February 28, Cody added rabbit-fed engorged female blacklegged ticks to Gena's tick life cycle enclosures. He has been checking their progress weekly. Shown below are photos of a tick's egg laying progress 2 and 3 weeks later respectively. Go, Mama, go!