An Amphibian Night VES with Dave.

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Hi Folks.

The main thing that kept me busy during the five weeks in the Yachana Reserve was my studying towards the qualification to be able to lead and supervise biological surveys. I chose to research amphibians and reptiles of the neotropics because they are so fascinating. It was a lot of work but I succeeded! I learned a lot in a short time and I really enjoyed every minute of it. Because the majority of these fabulous creatures are nocturnal, most of the field work was done at night in the rainforest, often requiring us to wade through streams and rivers and climb steep ravines in the rain, dodging tarantulas, scorpions and spiky plants en route.. The night VES (visual encounter survey) involved 6 people walking in a line for 500 meters over the course of 2.5 hours. The front person leads with the GPS, the next two look to the right, the next two to the left then finally the scribe at the rear records the data. It was always an exciting survey, always finding a wide variety of species, including some that had never been seen on the reserve before. Most of the frogs are very small and are found in the leaf litter on the forest floor or in the trees. The poison dart frogs (named so because the indigenous people used their powerful toxins to coat their hunting darts) are my favourite, I love the sanguine poison dart frog (Ameerega bilinguis) as it has an amazing red back and is full of energy, it always puts up a fight!
Dave.

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Photos

Phyllomedusa tomopterna
A beautiful tree frog.

Hypsiboas boans
The gladiator tree frog.

Bufo in a bag.
We always handle frogs with a plastic bag to prevent spreading the chytrid fungus.

Scinax rubra
another great tree frog.

Black caimen
Crocodile-like and 1.5 metres long in the lagoon.

The cane toad
Bufo marinus (cane toad).

Cochranella midas
A rare glass frog that we caught.

Bolittoglossa peruviana
A lungless salamander. Really amazing little creature about 6cm long and breathes through the skin.

Handling a lizard
Enyalioides laticeps

Sanguine poison dart frog.
Ameerega bilinguis.

Blunt-headed tree snake.
About 1 metre long.

Pristimantis kichwarum
The most common frog on the reserve.

Comments

[The Travel Camel]

A Frog Blog!
Please write more blogs about your research (but please no tarantula photos!) as frogs are a favoured subject of mine, and it is great to finally see a blog dedicated to them. The Bufo Marinus was introduced into Australia to kill the cane beetle, and it was a disastrous move. Not only did they fail to kill the beetles, but the toad population exploded and caused large problems to the native fauna in the northern part of Australia. It is comforting to see that the native frogs appear to survive well in Ecuador despite the cane toad's presence.

[Hana]

So inspiring!
Dave and Theresa: I had lost track of where are your adventurous spirits leads you...but this time, oh, the rainforest - I have to respond, I am so amazed! Congratulations Dave, this is fantastic and Theresa, these spiders - not sure how I would deal with that.. but so what, it is worth it. Theresa, can you collect "samples" for your own collection? Like dead buterflies or falled flowers and bring them back to Canada if you want? Nevertheless, I am inspired, I love reading your blog, I want to go! To explore the rainforest's plant life has been on my list of things to do before I die for a long time. I suppose, a similar opportunity to help with the research would exist for the forest's vegetation, right? Thanks for sharing your experiences and all the best from the microcosm of planet called S.L.!

[Greta]

Frogging & Blogging
Love the blogs, Love the Frogs; You took care not to Trip on Logs! Maachu Pichu u peeked at too, Wish I'd Been there, Along with You! =)