Panama Update #3

Things here in Panama have been going very well, the rains returned a few weeks ago and things are lush. Work has been steady and we're wrapping things up now.  I haven't had much time to photograph for fun at all but let me share a few things with you.

Near the village of Gloria we've been working in our most remote field site.  It's a bit of a hike to get there, but once you're in pristine forest it's hard to think of anything but how nice it is there.

Near the stream, pictured above, I caught a glimpse of a species of Anolis lizard I hadn't previously seen in Panama, though I was well familiar with it from Costa Rica.  Norops aquaticus is a species of anole that you find around small streams climbing amongst rocks.  I've always thought it was a treat to see and it was exciting to reunite with it.

A fine looking dewlap for the ladies.

One thing I've been looking at this year is how habitat disturbance, linked to anthropogenic land use, can affect species.  Conveying what I mean by disturbance is more difficult with words than with photos.  The photo above and below both have frogs in high densities...

Next week some dear friends are coming down to visit, Drew and Cadyn have a great homesteading blog that I highly recommend called the Immortal Mountain and we're going to do some traveling for a few days and maybe even try some relaxing in the ocean.

I've been told I have no photos of myself on here, which if frankly fine with me, but since this photo highlights the new spectrophotometer (Ocean Optics Jaz unit) which I've been giving quite the workout this year, I'll use it to help promote Ocean Optics.  They've been very generous helping me finance the unit and the portability it gives me is fantastic.  This photo, as you may have guessed, is totally staged.

The 'Micro Mega Terrarium' Part 2

If you look back a number of posts you'll realize, as I just did, that I posted photos of the start of this project but never updated it.

For full details check out the original post (Micro Mega Terrarium part 1).

To briefly recap, this terrarium is 3' x 2' x 3', just one foot shorter than the 'Mega Terrarium' but with the same footprint.  It has 2 closed fan systems and one 96 watt compact fluorescent light.  The misting system operates with the same pump and 3 x double misting heads.  The background is expanding spray foam covered with a mix of coconut peat (coir) mixed with crushed tree fern panels.

The initial planting was fairly sparse with the idea of having moss cover the walls and have various textured leaved plants around.  Almost every plant is green with the exception of some Begonias on the ground.

Over time the terrarium has filled in with moss and settled in nicely.  The faux rocks poke out from the moss and are great accents.  Trailing plants will fill in the bottom and I'll propagate more plants to fill it in lightly with time.

There's a great quantity of very small Pleurothallid alliance orchids sprawled throughout the plantable epiphytic space.  Blooms are frequent (albeit tiny) and it's fun to look for new flowering plants.

Well now I should admit that all these photos are now a few months old, they were taken a little while before I left.