The expedtion's first blog...

It's been more than 8 months since we first met and assembled our team of zoologists to organise our expedition to study animals in the rainforests of Trinidad. It feels like it's been a long journey, and that's without even taking into account how far we had to travel to get here!

My name is Innes, and I'm the student-leader on the expedition. It's my second time in Trinidad, and my 3rd expedition to the tropics. I love studying wildlife in tropical forests, as they're my favourite habitat to work in - mostly because I'm totally fascinated by all the different bugs! There are 5 other students from Glasgow University here with us, as well as 2 members of staff from the Zoology department of our university - Professor Roger Downie (frog-expert) and Doctor Dan Thornham (entomologist).

As this is our first entry, the team are just going to introduce themselves and give a couple of their thoughts about the expedition after their first full day in the jungle:

My name is Cara and this is my first time on an expedition of any sort! Studying tropical wildlife has always been a major interest of mine and I have been looking forward to seeing all the different animals we will encounter during our stay. As well as studying frogs I am particularly looking forward to visiting the caves in Trinidad which are inhabited by various kinds of bats and birds.

My name is Susie and I am really looking forward to spending two months in the rainforest. However, I have only been here a day, and have already been bitten loads by mosquitoes, and had a cane toad pee on me! The cane toads are really cool though, as they are pretty big and warty-looking, but fairly tricky to capture! I'm really looking forward to working with them on the expedition, and seeing lots of other really cool animals as well.

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My name is Nina and this is the first time I've been in a real rainforest. One of the most amazing thing about being in the middle of the forest is all the noises you can hear all the time, its never quiet here...frogs, birds ,insects, each with their own special noise. The trees here are very tall and they have plants with very colourful flowers growing all over them. Today a huge cockroach came into the living room...at first it was a bit scary but really it was quite cool. I'm really looking forward to see more of the animals living on this island over the next 8 weeks.

My name is Gail. This is my second time in the rainforest, although it is my first time in Trinidad. I love the rainforest. It is very hot and humid, but it's also the coolest place on the planet. We have seen loads of amphibians, a few reptiles, my favourites the geckos, as well as a small snake that eats tadpoles, and beautiful birds of paradise, yet we hear a lot more than we see. We have a white sheet in the garden near a light to attract insects. Some of which are huge! It is a beautiful island. We are stationed near the northern mountain range, parts of which we will be exploring during the expedition so more about that later.

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Hi there everyone, my name is Sean. I have just finished my degree in university before coming here. I will tell you a little about our journey to get here and how it has been since arriving. To get here we had to travel for almost 30 hours, or 4 school days, overall, and we were all absolutely exhausted by the time we got here. We got 2 trains and 2 planes and it felt like we were waiting in stations forever but our last flight from Tobago to Trindad made it all worth it. We flew in a really small plane, very bumpy, over the mountains covered in what looked like a blanket of rainforest, and it was amazing!!

Once off the plane the first thing that struck me was the wall of hot humid heat, kind of like being in a really hot shower without the washing part. Some of the other things that I immediately noticed were the cool Caribbean accents and the Trinidad charm. After spending the first day here I feel completely at home. I feel like I am part of this big exciting ecosystem full of weird and wonderful creatures from dragonflies to beetles, loads of colourful birds with fantastic sounds that I never knew existed, never ending hissing of cicadas and the night calling of frogs. The noise that tiny little frogs make is unbelievably loud. Overall it is colourful, noisy, busy, and hot.