Gibson’s World

Rich Pagen is the ornithologist on the Explorer 2, our ship that goes to the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica.  He has been working on the Explorers since 2004 (4 years from this year).  He started out on the Explorer 1 as a marine mammalogist, but when the Explorer 1 sank he became the ornithologist for the Explorer 2.  While we were on the Explorer 2, I had to interview somebody, so I decided to interview Rich  and learned a lot about him.

Rich has been interested in wildlife since he was a child.  At first he liked turtles and fish but later he moved onto other animals.  His favorite birds to see in Antarctica are the Wandering Albatross and the Gentoo Penguin (right).  The most amazing bird he has ever seen though is the Ground Cuckoo which lives in the Amazon Rainforest.  It runs on the ground, has a big bill, and follows army ants.  Ground Cuckoos follow army ants because the ants score lots of insects out of their hiding, so the Ground Cuckoo can then find food much more easily.

Rich usually doesn’t have a lot of free time, but when he does, he likes to be on the deck, do laps around the top deck, play his guitar, and write music and songs.  Back in the U.S., he also likes to do the Christmas bird count when you try to see as many species of birds each day around Christmas.  Rich’s favorite place to bird is Minnesota, his home, because he likes seeing the warblers fly over each year.

While we were on the Explorer 2, Rich gave interesting bird lectures to the entire ship and told us what type of birds we were seeing from the deck. I was really glad that we could have Rich on the ship with us.

Chocolate is a really interesting food.  It most commonly comes in milk, dark, and white chocolate.  My favorite is milk, but other people may have different opinions.

Many people don’t know that chocolate comes from the seeds of cacao trees.   Cacao trees are native from tropical South America, but have been introduced to tropical places all over the world including Africa, Australia, and Asia.  Although cacao trees started out only in South America, Africa now produces about 2/3rds of all the cacao for the world.  The seeds from a cacao tree are like those of a cantalope except much bigger.

The history of chocolate is really interesting.  Both the Mayans and the Aztecs used chocolate.  Most people think of chocolate as something you eat, but the Mayans and Aztecs disagreed.  The Mayans and Aztecs made a cold, bitter drink made from chocolate and mixed with chiles, peppers, and other spicy foods.  Ugggg!  The Mayans consider it to be a gift from the gods, so only the royal people could drink it on special occasions.  The Aztec’s also used chocolate, but more often. 

Did you know that the Aztecs used cacao beans as money?  Probably not.  Aztecs think of Cacao trees the way we would think of a money tree.  One turkey would cost 100 cacao beans and one fresh avocado would cost three cacao beans.  Cacao beans might be valuable to people, but they definitely aren’t to horses, dogs, parrots, small rodents or cats.  If any of these animals eat chocolate or cacao seeds, they can suffer seizures, heart attacks, internal bleeding, and could eventually die from it.

During our stay in Bariloche, we went to the Fenoglio Chocolate Factory and learned a ton about chocolate.  So next time you eat chocolate, remember that without the cacao tree, chocolate would never exist.

Giant Anteaters are one of the most amazing creatures on earth.  These nearly-threatened animals inhabit the tropical Amazonian jungle but also like grasslands.  They are huge and can reach up to eight feet long including a four-foot long tail.  They are covered with long straw-like fur reaching up to 40 centimeters long on its tail!  Although they are eight feet long, they weigh only from 65 to 140 pounds.  Another amazing fact is that Giant Anteaters’ tongues can be up to two feet long!

Giant anteaters feed mainly on ants and termites and they are able to eat up to 30,000 of them each day.  Yum!!!  Giant Anteaters can eat so many insects so fast because they can stick out and pull back in their two-foot tongue up to 150 times a minute!  That is a lot more times than any person could ever do.  Giant Anteaters are one of the few mammals that don’t have any teeth, so they don’t have much of a choice food-wise.  They also have a good sense of smell (ten times better than humans) to help find ants and termites. 

Giant Anteaters are usually diurnal, but if they live near a human settlement, they are nocturnal to shy away from people.  Even though the Greek name for Giant Anteaters (myrmecophaga tridactyla) means three-fingered anteaters, Giant Anteaters really have five fingers.

The Giant Anteaters’ technique to fight off predators is really interesting.  They are capable of scaring off or even killing Pumas, Jaguars, and other large cats.  The Giant Anteater does this by standing up on its hind legs, supported by its tail, and swiping with sharp claws at the opponent.  That would be really interesting to watch!  They usually succeed, but sometimes the cats win and earn a feast. 

On this trip, so far we haven’t seen any Giant Anteaters.  I hope to see one of these amazing animals in Brazil.

Mauro works at the El Colibri Hotel, an hour outside of Cordoba, Argentina.  Cordoba is in the center of Argentina, and is in a region that is flat and good for farming.  At the inn, Mauro milks the cows, feeds the animals, and takes care of the farm.  For schoolwork, I had to interview him and learned a lot about him. 

Mauro has been working for El Colibri for four years.  His favorite animals are the horses, but he likes to play with all of the animals especially the dogs, cows, and horses.  He likes almost everything about his job and it is all easy for him because he grew up on a farm.   Luckily, he has never been hurt badly by any of the animals, but he has gotten a few scrapes.

While we were staying at El Colibri, Mauro gave us a Monk Parakeet to keep.  We built a house for it and put it in our windowsill.  Once people had seen the parakeet, everybody wanted it.  On the last day, we came back from breakfast and the parakeet was gone.  We searched for it but couldn’t find it and we haven’t figured out yet if it just escaped or if somebody wanted it so badly that they took it.  Mauro told me that it was hard to catch, so I guess he might not catch another for a while.  I learned a lot about Mauro during the interview and think that taking care of the farm might be a really interesting job to have. 

Machu Picchu is a really old Incan City (about 550 years old).  It was built in 1450 and abandoned 100 years later.  Nobody is really sure why it was abandoned.  One theory is that the empire was collapsing from diseases, so the Incas all wanted to be at the capital of the empire, Cuzco.

One of the most important questions about Machu Picchu is, “How was it built?”  The Incas built Machu Picchu by putting huge boulders on rollers and rolling them to the building site.  Once the stones were where the Incas wanted them to be, the Incas would carve and sand the stones into the required shapes.  Unlike most modern buildings, the stones used by the Incas were not all the same shape.  Some were pillowed, some round, and one stone even has 33 corners!  The reason that the Incas made some stones have lots of corners was so that the walls would hold up better to earthquakes or tremors.  For this reason and the fact that the Spanish never found Machu Picchu, it is in the best condition of any Incan ruin.

Machu Picchu is one of the most important Incan cities because lots of royal people lived here.  About 1,000 people lived at Machu Picchu, but even all of its garden terraces could not support everyone’s food requirements, so some food had to be delivered from outside to support them all.

After Machu Picchu was abandoned in 1550, it was forgotten and not discovered by the outside world again until July of 1911 when Hiram Bingham, led by a peasant boy, found Machu Picchu.  The peasant boy was from a local village that had already found Machu Picchu and used some of its terraces but had not told anybody outside of their village.

Today, Machu Picchu is a famous tourist attraction where more than 4,000 people a day come and explore the ruins.  Even some animals have made themselves at home in Machu Picchu, including many birds, lizards, vizcachas, and llamas (Machu Picchu lawnmowers).  When we visited Machu Picchu, we saw many of these animals and had a really good time.

Benjamin is a guide we met at Sacha Lodge in the Amazon who went on all of the hikes with us and spotted many amazing things, including the Dwarf Iguana, lots of frogs, birds, and insects.  While I was in the Amazon, I interviewed him and learned a lot of things.

Benjamin lives in a town called Tena (40,000 people), about eight hours from the Sacha Lodge where he guides.  He has been guiding for six years now (2008) and his family tradition is to share with people their knowledge about plants, animals, and the Amazonian jungle.  On the hikes, he showed us lots of medicines from the jungle which he uses all the time.

Since he has been guiding for six years, he has experienced a lot.  He has never gotten lost in the forest, but has gotten stung by a scorpion.  The most amazing animal he has seen is a Spectacled Bear in the Andes Mountains, but his favorite to see is the Paka (a type of rodent).

The worst group he ever had was a really rude French group who complained about everything.  One of the most surprising things I learned was that all of the hikes were easy because he was used to walking for days with his father (a shaman) in the jungle.  He also said that he could survive in a jungle with only a pocket knife.  This is what I learned about Benjamin and I think that it would be really fun to guide in the Amazon.

In my opinion, Lava Lizards are one of the most interesting reptiles in the Galapagos. They are interesting to me because they have evolved differently on one island from the next and because they can be so different from each other.  In this blog, I’ve included lots of pictures of lava lizards, including this Espanola Lava Lizard on the left.

There are eight species of lava lizards (the Galapagos, Expanola, Floreana, Marchena, Pinta, Pinzon, and San Cristobal), only two of which we saw. The difference in them between islands is amazing even though they are actually so close on a map. For example, the lava lizard on Fernandina (an island with lots of black lava) are much darker than those on Santa Cruz (an island with almost no black lava). Even though both are the same species, they have evolved differently and someday might be different species.

Lava Lizards are relatively small lizards with long, tapering tails, very long toes, and have variable markings. Some have stripes, spots, speckles, or nothing at all. A few have stripes, spots, and speckles! Their size can also vary from a couple of inches to a foot. Males are usually from 2-3 times heavier than the females, though.

Another interesting thing about them is their behavior. Unlike most lizards, lava lizards are diurnal or active during the day. They are also highly territorial and challenge both male and female intruders by doing push-ups with their front legs which is really cool to watch. I always wonder whether they ever get tired.

Even though most lizards are shy and hard to find, lava lizards in the Galapagos are everywhere and occur on almost every main island but Genovesa. They are usually found near or on rocks and boulders sunning themselves. They are so common that on some hikes, we couldn’t go for more than five minutes without seeing more than one. I was surprised that their predators (hawks, snakes, herons, centipeds, and mockingbirds) weren’t balloons from indulgement because there were so many lizards to be eaten.

It was amazing seeing so many lizards in the Galapagos (more in one day than I had ever seen in my life) and I enjoyed seeing not just the lava lizards, but also the land iguanas, marine iguanas, the turtles and tortoises, the birds, the marine life, and much more. The one animal we didn’t find was a snake, but I hope someday that I can come back to the Galapagos and next time maybe see some snakes, hybrid iguanas, Santa Fe land iguanas, some other birds, and a bunch more that we didn’t see. Although we didn’t see everything, it was by far the best place for wildlife I’ve been in my life.

Steve Ambroe is the videographer for The Islander.  The Islander is the boat that we are on while we are exploring the Galapagos.  The passengers on our boat go on hikes on a different island everyday.  Steve always comes with us and videos us with the animals that we see.    Since I thought he has an interesting job, I decided to interview him and this is what I found out.

Steve has been interested in taking videos since high school when his dad got a video camera.  Steve first started with videotaping sports and moved on to other things.  Although he has never videoed underwater, he would like to.  The most amazing thing he ever videoed was an orca killing a minke whale, in a location where there aren’t very many orcas.  I wish I could have seen that! 

Surprisingly, Steve’s favorite thing to video is birds because they are the most challenging.  Steve has been to lots of amazing places taking videos for cruise ships,  including Brazil, Portugal, the Galapagos, Alaska, the Arctic, and Antarctica.  South Georgia Island in Antarctica is his favorite place to video, because of he likes videoing the colorful and loud King Penguins there. 

After he has videoed the the week’s wildlife, he sells the DVD’s for $50 to all the guests on the boat.  The reason it’s expensive is that it takes a lot of time to edit the video every night (about two hours).  We bought three DVD’s so that we can remember our trip to the Galapagos, and we’ll send two of them to other people.

This is what I learned while interviewing Steve and I learned a lot about what it is like to be a videographer on a boat.

This year, I have read a lot of books on animals n the places we’ve been, and have seen lots of animals. So far, I’ve read books on animals in Australia, Thailand, Bhutan, India, and New Zealand. They’ve all been interesting, but one of the books I have enjoyed this year is New Zealand Wildlife.

New Zealand Wildlife is a field guide, or a non-fiction reference book, about the birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates of New Zealand. I think it was a good book because it described so many different types of animals instead of just birds or just mammals, or just reptiles. The book also good pictures and described the animals well.

My favorite part of the book was the section on reptiles and amphibians. It was really fun to learn about what frogs or lizards we might be able to see on the Milford Track or in the Bay of Islands. I also liked looking through the mammals part, except there were only 34 mammals (just two that are native to New Zealand).

If I could only see one animal in New Zealand, I would probably want to see a tuatara. I learned that tuataras’ fossils have been dated back to 225 million years ago, and they are the only animal today that has survived from the period of dinosaurs. The only problem is that tuataras are very hard to see because they are restricted to some islands off of New Zealand and they’re nocturnal. We did go to one of these islands, but didn’t see a tuatara.

If you are into New Zealand wildlife (not that many people are), you should definitely read New Zealand Wildlife by Terence Lindsey and Rod Norris. It was a really helpful guide for me to use to identify and learn about all of the animals I saw in New Zealand.

Common vine snakes are really interesting snakes for many reasons. A common vine snake is a long, bright green snake with a pink tongue and a thin, pointed snout. Common Vine Snakes inhabit South India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the northern part of mainland Southeast Asia and are

usually found in forests, gardens, or bushes.