Let slip the frogs...

Hi there, or "How ya goin'?" as they say here. It's been a funny week since our last blog post, as apart from all the work on all of the projects that we're running on the expedition there's been a bit of a mixture of sadness and celebration as well as one of our team, Prof. Downie, returned to Scotland during the week, his time in the jungle finished. He left with a bang though, or maybe more of a hop and a skip, as we held a wee ceilidh in the research station to wish him a fond "bon-voyage" on Wednesday night, which was a new experience for some present! There was a little bit more mountain-climbing again, as the tree-climbing team clambered up Mt.Aripo again to check out all the bugs inside the bromeliads at the top, and to look for the ever-elusive golden tree-frog. Unfortunately none of the shiny little frogs were spotted, but it never ceases to amaze how many creatures dwell within these plants way up in the trees. Each plant is like a mini-ecosystem with predators and prey, and predators preying on the other predators!
On Friday morning the team were all up and out early to visit a cave near the Asa Wright Centre inhabited by a very special type of bird. These birds are known commonly as oil-birds, as in the past they were hunted for their fat, which could be used to produce fuel, but that's really one of the least special things about them. Looking like something out of prehistory, these surprisingly big birds are able to use high-frequency sounds to find their way around when they fly. This is like a special type of natural sonar, which is called echolocation. Only a few species of birds use this type of navigation, which is normally associated with bats, and it was really impressive to see these big birds swooping in the near-darkness of their cave, managing to avoid the jagged walls.
This shed exoskeleton of a tail-less whip-scorpion was in the cave that the birds lived in

On Saturday a few of us took another trip back to the South-Western tip of the island to return some of our amphibian house-guests. The big black tadpoles that we showed you in one of our last blogs had since turned into little grey-spotted frogs, and it was time to let them go in the swamp that we found them in.

Surprisingly the young frogs seemed smaller than the fat black tadpoles they had started out as.

Even more surprisingly, when they mature fully the frogs will be bright yellow!

Sunday was a fun-day, as we visited a secluded beach with a fantastic waterfall nearby to celebrate Susie turning 21, so I think it would be appropriate to end by wishing her a big Happy Birthday once again.
See you later!

PS. I couldn't think of any way to link things to this picture, but I really like jumping spiders, and thought this little guy was great, so here's a cool photo! - Innes