2938394 down...

...115 to go. Leaf-litter traps, that is. Tomorrow's my last day at Coweeta, and as kind of a last hurrah today, I hiked the short trail up to a scenic overlook with one of Maerz's grad students, Brian. We huddled under rhododendron while a small storm passed over us and then crawled out onto a rocky outcrop, picked wild blueberries, and watched the sun peek out from the clouds and light up the valley. Amazing. And this Red-legged Salamander (Plethodon shermani) shared the view with us.

See y'all super, super soon.

Love,

Todd

hay got lots to say

It's been a while and so much has happened so here's a recap to my best ability. 

Been checking out events in town, working by day (the exhibit will be at the Chicago Architectural Foundation! Whooooo) and exploring the city by night, or just being exhausted and chilling. 

The 'shell' concert hall in Millennium Park

Guess who was in town?!

Kitties being lovers again

One weekend we checked out the Transformers set downtown. You can make out the car pileup on the bridge. By the way, love Chicago by night. But more on that later. 

One of the Wacker St. tunnels, where they shot parts of Dark Knight --> Chris Nolan --> INCEPTION! Which I haven't seen yet but am going to this weekend.

Chicago River

Some of the cars from the movie. We think there's something really nice/shiny/expensive under the tarp.

Keep reading...

FAIL

So I've spent the entire summer being sad because I didn't think anyone was posting here (I am not great with the internet, but this is unusually bad). But, at least I discovered all of this on a bad day, so YAY. My day is worlds better!

I have no idea how to recapture those two months I was not blogging about, so I'll just start by saying Costa Rica was AWESOME and I'll share some photos (feel privileged, not even my parents have seen photos yet).

COSTA RICA!!
Scott Connelly was one of our instructors, and that was really awesome, so I don't even need Todds help IDing much (and I saw a LOT considering my poor herping skills). This is one he couldn't ID:
This one is for you Kelly, because all my fish pictures are bad:
This was more dangerous (and more fun) than it looks in the photo:
Everything was awesome, my poncho turned out to be very sturdy, and I did my best to recruit more Ecology club members. Results were mixed, so we'll just have to wait and see who shows up. I did not see a sea turtle, but I did catch a basilisk, so there. One of the cutest animals I encountered were baby cows, which isn't especially tropical but who can resist the way they chew on your fingers? NO ONE.

Now I am in Atlanta, enjoying the people, but not loving my cubicle-ville job very much. I CAN'T WAIT FOR SCHOOOOOOL!!!!!

Hey roadtrip

hahahahahaha sorry guys I just found this picture of Aniekan and I HAD to put this up! hahaha SO ANYWAYS.

A couple weeks ago I went on a road trip to New England with my mom. We went to a wedding (I didn't know anyone... it was her friend from high school's son.)





The wedding was in Kennebunkport, Maine which is this really cute tourist town. My Aunt and Uncle live in Maine, too. I love Maine! It is sooooo pretty and it smells so clean and everyone there is really healthy 'cause they all kayak or mountain bike or hike or do something naturey! Did you know Maine has the most coastline of any state because of all the islands?! It's just beautiful and I wish it were closer. Also for those of you city haters, Maine doesn't have many people at all... so it's a great escape. (during the summer, at least)

Kennebunkport, ME

same place



Oh... if you guys didn't know I LOVE sailboats.

So this wedding we went to was SUPER EXPENSIVE. It was really just ridiculous how much money they spent. They had three center pieces! I guess it was pretty though.....


Expensive wedding table. Too much white for my taste though.

I didn't know anyone at this wedding, but it was still fun. My mom got drunk and was acting silly. Also I sat next to this man named Julius who was freaking hilarious :). I also learned that New England boys are super awkward and are kind of afraid of girls. Julius told me people in New England are not as friendly in general which makes them more awkward hahaha

Julius and Me

Fancy table of desserts. ummm

After that we went to Boston, Mass. for the Fourth of July. It was really neat because we were on the Charles River and they have that famous fireworks display. They really were the best fireworks I've ever seen in my life.



Ducks. I don't know what was going on here but it w as cool so I took a picture.

Best fireworks EVER. These one's were espescially neat.

Restaurant in Boston. This is basically for Sheena... I know how you like pictures of food lol

Ok then we made it to NYC. We stayed in Manhattan. OMG we saw Stomp! It was amazing. If you guys ever get a chance to see it in New York... do it! And we got our tickets for it (and for West Side Story which we saw the next day) at the half price ticket booth. If you don't know about it ask me about it later, but it's the only way to buy tickets (CHEAP).

Grand Central Station. Recognize it from other pictures? Very beautiful.

Cool thing in Time Square advocating smart water usage.

Well, that's the end. We then drove back to beautiful Cumming, GA. hahaha I love that I will always be able to make fun of the name of my home town.

Miss you guys, and wish you would post again! I need some interesting reading!

I would love...

...to update y'all on life at Coweeta, but I'm rushed for time with this limited internet access, and instead, I'll summarize with some cute salamander photos.

A few weekends ago, I took a trip a few hours away to chase a few new species. I found them, and I also turned up this beautiful monster in a nearby stream. Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) overlooking her domain.

A lot of my job consists of checking leaf litter traps in streams for aquatic species, but we've started a new project involving the hybridization and activity patterns of two species of terrestrial Plethodontids at Coweeta. The cuter of the two, the Red-legged Salamander (Plethodon shermani), is pictured here. These guys are ridiculously abundant on the forest floor at night.

Our leaf-litter traps are geared towards finding other species, but I'm certainly not going to turn down the chance to photograph the beautiful and charismatic Red Salamander (Pseudotriton ruber) when it's a bycatch.

Speaking of Pseudotriton, I was surprised (but elated) to see two of the Red Salamander's cousins, the Mud Salamander (Pseudotriton montanus), at Sandy Creek when I visited Athens this past weekend. This species is really uncommon throughout much of the Piedmont, and July is possibly the worst time of year to search for them. And oh yeah, I also saw some awesome people in Athens :)

Perhaps the coolest thing I've seen here happened last week around Coweeta. After finishing checking some leaf-litter traps, I kept flipping rocks in hopes of turning up something to alleviate the boredom. Under a promising rock alongside the edge of the stream, I flipped up male and female Black-bellied Salamanders (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) guarding their eggs. You can't tell from the photos, but these things are behemoths--around 10 inches each. Momma on top and daddy on the bottom, with a small fraction of their clutch.

The next generation. These little guys were really near hatching (in fact, several hatched and swam away as I photographed them). Here, you can see their unvascularized gills (they live in water with such high O2 content that they can get all they need through their skin) and the yellow yolk in the belly, which will provide the young with enough food to last their first few days or weeks outside of the egg. Too cute.

So long for now!

Hmmm....not a summer fun post

I just saw this on a friends facebook page. Ok, he is still a friend and I definitely know that this is old and the new president has been in office for awhile now but... I can't help but think how awful this is. "... keep your change." People in America really believe(d) this. So disgusting.
I have no happy thoughts at the moment. Sorry this wasn't environmental....

busy busy blog blog

It's been a while, internet! Part of the reason is because working 9-5 is surprisingly exhausting, and the other reason is that we've been wireless-less at the apartment because of weird wiring issues with the apartment. But no matter, I have set up shop at a coffee shop to bring you news from Chicago!

I checked out the Louis Sullivan exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center for inspiration for the exhibit I'm putting together, and just to see the exhibit.

The Cultural Center is cool

Shayna and Leila

For the 4th of July, I saw PASSION PIT FOR FREE at Grant Park. It was a superb concert, despite being surrounded by 14 year olds. Check out their pants and shoes:

My turn to be Sheena!

Today I got confused. One. I stepped on some stupid, random rusty metal object in the forest. It pierced through my boot and that biatch cut me! I thought it was a really sharp wooden stump at first and decided it just needed cleaning. After further investigation, Lieneke and I found out it was metal (thank God for magnets!). So… tetanus anyone? Get this. I have the tetanus shot but guess when it expires? July of 2010. This doesn’t mean that I would 100% have tetanus but after working in the field and letting the would fester, my hypochondriac mind got the best of me. I decided to get another tetanus shot while in Panama. Before deciding that though, I watched the Netherlands vs Uruguay game… and Netherlands won!!!! Woooo~

Ok. So, after getting to Panama city with Lieneke (I forced her to accompany me), we took a crazy taxi to the doctor’s office. Blah blah blah doctors are boring buuuut guess how much the tetanus shot was… done?

$11. That is it. OH MY. And apparently this was a private doctor aka a lot of people would not be able to afford it. This blows my mind. Comment about American health care if you will. I accept.

I think a lot of other stuff happened but we got back at around 11pm of some boat issues so, I am very tired right now.

And I am pretty sure I want my ear pierced – sidebar done.

Giulia, Lieneke and I in the picture. We are on our way to eat at Beirut!!
Me and Karin - You know how we party!
Shots!... This is actually tea.
Field equipment time!

Antenna and checkerboard. Checkerboard is for the camera traps. We use it to size the animals up later (in a photo). The antenna is used to find the radio tagged seeds.
The radio receiver is the remote thing. Input the right radio frequency into that thing.
A radio transmitter! It is on a magnet which means the radio tag is off - when an agouti moves a seed that has one of these babies attached, it leaves the magnet and turns on. Then we find it!
Camera pointed at seed... see the pink flagging tape??
camura!
Seed experiment - Line up 5 seeds in front of a camera and hope some radio collard agoutis take the seeds. one is missing!
up close and personal!
equipment. The essentials.
Don't step on this bitch.... there is a roach in my room as I am typing this sentence.
newer camera. i set this one up.

thanks. :)
Lieneke (from Holland) and Sumana (from Nepal - went to school in Virginia)

I love my teammates. They look wank but we all do when we are out there :)
moth.
Awesomer moth.

Really though. Sooo cool.
I was trying to show that this moth had transparent spots.
.... twice.. haha
When I stepped on the metal spike thing in the middle of a fucking forest. I swear it looked cooler/worse in real life!
The island gives you bunions... calluses... whatever. My feet are ruined.
Don't laugh. i was tired.
This is just on a day it was raining. Not interesting but I uploaded the wrong video haha