Day 6: From Santa Rita Experiemental Range to Southwestern Research Station

On Friday, August 2, I woke up earlier than the set time I was supposed to wake, but later than the entire bunk. Most of the group was up and cleaning by 7am. I had slept til 8. The morning at Santa Rita Experimental Range was pretty uneventful other than a thunderstorm also known as a monsoon ripped over our canyon post breakfast. It was the first time I'd seen so much rain in the desert. We loaded up all the vehicles after lunch and left SRER behind as we drove the 3.5 hour stretch towards Cornado National Park just west of the New Mexico border. We drove on I-10 and saw so many signs for "The thing?" that our interest was exploding by the 26th sign we saw, that Lee and Angela(the head researchers, and our leaders) decided we could stop and see it. I tell you what it wasn't much to see. But if you like really old antique-ish, un-dusted stuff, the rest-top where "The Thing?" is has a lot of it. 

When we arrived at South Western Research Station (SWRS), it was beautiful like a temperate paradise in the middle of the desert. It is nestled right in the canyon of the Chiricahua mountains. Sometimes they refer to the mountain ecosystems in Arizona as sky islands because they are so different and isolated from the dry hot ecosystems that extend between the mountain ranges of this area. We had definitely landed on a sky island at SWRS. It was a beautiful natural paradise. 

After dinner we had a talk by the famous Doug Tallany about conservation through eco-landscaping (something we can all do, trade out our big un-diverse lawns and put in more native plants that will attract caterpillars and insects, and therefore birds and and other wildlife.) I decided that Farida and I are going to try and work together to start a butterfly garden at my school when we return to NYC. We want her my Juniors and Seniors working with her First graders. This partnership could make for an interesting community action plan.

Finally, we did a night walk with Neil (Dave Wagner's assistant researcher). We saw a whip tail scorpion (squirts vinegar as a defense) and Farida found a little scorpion that looked awesome under the black light. It was really small and contrary to popular belief, potentially deadly as compared to the large black scorpions that simply feel like a bee sting when they sting you. All in all, the time here at SWRS should be eventful. Can't wait to share more. 

Day 5: Sonora Desert Museum and the Sunset after the Storm

Thursday was awesome! We went to the Sonara Desert  Museum. Which don’t be fooled is much more a zoo than the traditional museum you’re thinking of. I got to crawl through caves, walk through the desert ecosystem, sit with hummingbirds buzzing around me and see so many different kinds of wildlife, from mountain lions to ocelots, eels, tarantulas, coyote, black bears, rattle snakes, elf owls, javelina, beavers coati, and butterflies,  My favorite part was learning about the cacti. Actually my friend Farida and I made a video about cacti for your educational enjoyment.

After the video, both Michelle and Farida ended up with barbs in their hands from the prickly pear  (yep, we ate the fruit. It was a bit sweet and extremely seedy, but not in a shady way. ) Furthermore,  Farida was showing me how the teddy bear cactus works (it pretty much allows a limb to fall off if gently knocked completely damaging whatever is below it as the spines are barbed and face backwards to create extreme pain as you pull them out. Farida drops this rock on a part of the TB cactus, a piece falls off and rolls in the path. We can’t leave this pointy bulb just sitting around, so she goes to throw it, and as she releases it it slips out of her fingers and the barbs stay attached to her fingers. Her face showed that it was excruciating.

Later a docent was telling us about how painful pricks from a cactus can be, it was nearly impossible for me to keep a straight face as Farida and Michelle simultaneously say, “I can only imagine.” With far too much conviction. The docent also told us about mesquite powder and jojoba beans. Mesquite powder is formed by grinding down the seed pods of the mesquite. She let us try some. It was sweet like sugar with a slight hint of mesquite BBQ taste. She then explained how jojoba bean oil is in many cosmetics. She pointed out the shrub the beans come from and let us put some of the tasteless, odorless, waxy-oil on our hands. It perfectly models the natural oils released by human skin and hair glands.

Overall, it was probably the most fun I've ever had at a museum. Just as we were leaving we saw the monsoons falling near Santa Rita. We drove home on winding roads through mountains covered in Saguaro (see my video for this type of cactus).When we got home, I went for a very humid run. A rarity in this part of the country. I saw two fuzzy rabbits and one jack rabbit with the huge ears. I kept a steady pace to ensure that no cattle came after me.  After my run and advice session about all the cool stuff to see in LA, I sneaked off to watch the sunset. They say that the sunsets out west are the best. I completely agree. It was the most beautiful sunset I've seen.  As I walked the dusty, dusky path back to the range. A skunk ran out in 30 meters a head of me. Bats flew close over head. Something  kept rustling in the shrubs to my right. I’m hoping some small herbivore as I quickened my pace. At least I didn't see a tarantula.

I was late to dinner but was saved a huge slice of vege lasagna. I made it just in time for Angela’s talk on Caterpillar immune systems and parasatoids. We came up with the idea of tracking mortality rates (due to parsatoids vs. pathogens vs. predators) by injecting caterpillars with computer chips so you could see how many are preyed on. Maybe someday a scientist will do an experiment using my idea. 

Tomorrow (Friday) is cleaning and packing up to head to South West Research Station, which is supposed to be the ritz of research centers, guess we’ll see. 

Day 4: Adventure Caterpillar Collecting

On Wednesday, I was assigned to go on a mystery trip with Dr. Wagner. Just to give you some background, Dr. Wagner is the best caterpillar taxonomist alive. He has identified and named 20 new species, and even has 2 species named after him. Of course, he’s written some very visually clarifying field guides. He also gets super excited about caterpillar finds. 

To start our trip, we drove down to a canyon near Patagonia, Arizona. It was much greener and lusher than the canyons around SRER. We were just randomly driving and crossed a bridge, Doc Wagner got really excited as we passed some popular trees by the bridge. He pulled over, “Everybody out, we’re going to go bang on those poplars!” That was the first of 5 random stops we made whenever he saw the proper host plant of the specific caterpillar he was looking for. 

We found some really rare specimens including one that had never been photographed in its last instar (final post malt period of larva stage). It was fun not knowing when we’d suddenly pull over, be out of the car, banging trees and shrubs with our tap rods and catch sheets. I got pretty good at spotting caterpillars without banging branches of trees. I looked for leaves  that were freshly eaten to help guide my vision to a spot on an elderberry bush where I located a little stick-like caterpillar. When I banged him onto my catch sheet, he’d flop around like a fish out of water. I called it his “crazy dance.” I discovered this caterpillar on our second stop. Each time we stopped, Dr. Wagner would say that we were going to lunch after the next stop. This process repeated itself 6 times. Truly, not even food is a priority for this scientists, just caterpillars!

Finally, when he set us free to grab lunch in Patagonia, our group went to a little Mexican food diner and hoped that the monsoon would come in. This time of year it is supposed to rain quite a bit, but it really hasn't happened since I've been here, so we we're really hoping it will: the more rain, the more caterpillars. We got ice-cream before heading back home. We did one last beat on junipers for Lee and then went back to SRER. I walked the quarter mile to make a few phone calls, and then I showered and went to dinner.

We had burritos and they were awesome! We also celebrated Greg’s birthday with a cake. The icing was a homemade fudge icing (made with melted chocolate chips and powdered sugar.) It was very sweet. Rory, Michelle and I stayed after and made the lasagna for Thursday's dinner. We are super planners. I am going to bed early tonight because tomorrow we are leaving at the crack of dawn to go to the Sonora Desert Museum. I know what you’re thinking…boooorrrrriiiinnnnggg. But actually it has a lot of live organisms which means it should be pretty cool. I will tell you more about it soon.

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Day 3: First Day Collecting in the Field

This was our first full day at SRER. I got up at 6 am and went for a run with Farda, Michelle, and Tong. We ran down the drive that leads up to the center and it was beautiful. The golden mountains warming up around us. The first half of the run was easy and mostly all downhill. The second half of the run was really hard! Not only was it uphill but I kept getting kind of dizzy and having shaky vision. I took a bottle of ice water with me to drink during the run, it wasn't dehydration but rather the altitude that was making me feel so overworked. We are at 4000 feet above sea level here.

After breakfast, the group went into the field and we collected caterpillars for Lee. The first thing we did when we got to the site was layout the 10 meter diameter plot. Then we just started to beat every tree and shrub in the area with our beater sticks or as I like to call them tap rods, and beat-sheets. Check out this video, my friend, Michelle made. She introduces the VIDEO but I am the main star explaining how to collect caterpillars using the supplies I just mentioned above.

As I mention in the video, some of the caterpillars are so small. It takes a very focused eye to spot them. We left the field after about 2 hours and headed back to the station for lunch. On our way back our car talked about what science is. In two words all of the teachers in the car had to describe it. I said, inquiry experimentation. The photographer professor, Doug, who asked the question said, I was the closest, he said science is hypothesis testing. Lee added that the word science means “to know.” Which make sense because to be able to know something you have got to test it out.

After lunch we did some processing of the caterpillars. The first thing Farda and I did was go “shopping.” Pretty much you go out and collect leaves (food) from trees that we know the caterpillars will eat. I got distracted while we were doing this with the night light sheet that was hanging up nearby and was looking at the few species that were still on it in the middle of the day, and I suddenly hear this rustling near my right foot. I look down and see a lizard tearing the wing off a moth. The poor moth, wingless, is trying to crawl away, and I am watching the entire scene breathless, I think I slightly moved my head as a mosquito flew by and the lizard reacted. He grabbed that moth with his jaws and took off out of sight. I didn't even know lizards ate moths until then. I thought moths were mainly bird food.

The processing of caterpillars was an extensive activity. We all sat around a big table. Took caterpillars out of the bags they were in that we collected them in the field, put them into little cups with lids and some of their foliage, then wrote the date, genus type, food type, etc. on the cup. It was really annoying when someone put 1,000 times the foliage mass as compared to the caterpillar’s mass. That make finding a caterpillar the size of an eyelash, in a clump of 100 leaves harder than finding a needle in a haystack. 

Right before dinner, Doctor Wagnor, a prominent taxonomist in the caterpillar world, gave us an interesting talk on some adaptions that caterpillars have developed to help them survive. Did you know some caterpillars look like bird poop to deter birds from wanting to eat them/something that looks like their own poop? Some look like twigs, dead leaves, have the same reflection patterns as pine needles, look like flowers, have pointy spines that can sting a predator, throw their poo, or shoot acid out of their heads. I didn't realize it before today, but Caterpillars are AMAZING!