Day 6

Oh busy day!

I started today at the lab skyping my class back in Winslow. For those of you who do not know, remember the cartoon the Jetsons? They had a TV/phone where you could see the person you were talking to and vice-versa? That is skype. SO my students could see me and I could see them... unfortunately, because I can't seem to sleep down here. My roommate thinks maybe the room is haunted... so my appearance is lacking... oh I'll blame in on the pixels...

Back to science.
We went out to Honey Island Swamp today in search of caterpillars! We first had to don our boots... tall rubber boots that were supposed to ward off snakes and chiggers. Now back in Maine we don't have chiggers, but from what I hear about them we don't want to. We had to wear long sleeves and plants and hats and lots of DEET. I walked through the forest with a machete. We found the tree that we were to have for our focal point and measured a 5 m radius out from it. That was our plot. We first looked for caterpillars visually and then used sticks to beat the trees to dislodge the caterpillars. They fall into our awaiting beater sheets. Then a plant inventory is done to estimate type and amount of caterpillar food.

Our result? We found 15 caterpillars. They are now living in the "bag" room here at Tulane. We put them in ziplok baggies stuffed full of the plant they were eating.
They will keep them here until they emerge as a moth or until a parasitoid pops out leaving the dead caterpillar.

The swamp was dry, but interesting. We saw two snakes and three alligators as well as a great white heron. ( and a lot of spiders).

The snake was a 4-5 foot King snake. We are not sure of the other... he was a little but fiesty!
Last night we ate at a restaurant with local fare. I did not try the alligator cheesecake but did have some fried green tomatoes. Yum.

We made our way down to Bourbon Street last night to listen to some live/free music
that was supposed to be in the outside park, but downpours stopped that.
It really poured here last night. Wow.

My camera and computer are fighting so I can't get any pictures downloaded, but Melanie Dubose is posting some (of me) on her blog.