Monday night we went out to the lab pond at night. Stephanie Gutierrez and Ximena Bernal were are frog guides. This night has been one of the biggest highlights of this trip. The very first night I remember being so amazed by this new mysterious sound at night- the tungara frog! The male creates a mating call that sounds like a battle in Star Wars. We saw so many tungara frogs, tree frogs, gladiator frogs, and even cane toads. We even caught a tree frog that has BLUE bones, yes blue bones and Ximena told has that scientists don’t even know why they have blue bones. I love being able to share that with my students- there is still so much for us to learn and discover about our planet!

After frogging at the pond, Stephanie took us out to a more remote area where this guy Brian is studying the squatting behavior of tungara frogs when midges land on them. His main project is really on the ripples that occur in the water and how bats and other male frogs can detect those ripples. Such an amazing example of predator-prey relationships and eavesdroppers! I can’t wait to share with my students his field experience- he had a laser that would beam onto a piece of reflective tape and would then measure the movement of water. Crazy Science!