# Pictures from (field) Work in St Lucia



## miffikins

Hey all! Just thought I'd share a few pictures I've taken since working with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in St Lucia.

First up, the lovely St Lucian Iguana, it hasn't yet been discerned whether it is a subspecies of _Iguana iguana_ or a seperate species altogether, gorgeous animals all the same.










This is a female St Lucian Whiptail, _Cnemidophorus vanzoi_, which is a macro-teiid. Males are very bright but I've not yet got a decent enough picture.










Probably one of the rarest snake species in the world, the St Lucian racer/Maria Island Snake, _Liophis ornatus_, this little dude was having a soak in the hollow in a tree.










The whiptail and the racer only occur on the Maria islands (below) which are tiny. The whiptail has 2 genetically distinct populations, 1 on Maria Minor and one on Maria Major, and the racer only occurs on Maria Major. As you can see, the islands are tiny, thus making the populations very fragile.










Here's one for the invert people. Unknown tarantula that I nearly trod on in Quilesse Rainforest Reserve. About as big as my hand span.










I have got a load more that I will post when I have the time! Hope you like them

Kate : victory:


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## miffikins

miffikins said:


> Hey all! Just thought I'd share a few pictures I've taken since working with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in St Lucia.
> 
> First up, the lovely St Lucian Iguana, it hasn't yet been discerned whether it is a subspecies of _Iguana iguana_ or a seperate species altogether, gorgeous animals all the same.
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> This is a female St Lucian Whiptail, _Cnemidophorus vanzoi_, which is a macro-teiid. Males are very bright but I've not yet got a decent enough picture.
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> Probably one of the rarest snake species in the world, the St Lucian racer/Maria Island Snake, _Liophis ornatus_, this little dude was having a soak in the hollow in a tree.
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> The whiptail and the racer only occur on the Maria islands (below) which are tiny. The whiptail has 2 genetically distinct populations, 1 on Maria Minor and one on Maria Major, and the racer only occurs on Maria Major. As you can see, the islands are tiny, thus making the populations very fragile.
> 
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> Here's one for the invert people. Unknown tarantula that I nearly trod on in Quilesse Rainforest Reserve. About as big as my hand span.
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> I have got a load more that I will post when I have the time! Hope you like them
> 
> Kate : victory:


Sorry the photos arn't great quality, I'm taking donations for a better camera! :lol2:


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## tick

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay been waiting for these pics so hows you?

Guess what i got oooooooohh yes 1.1 Kimberly's we want more pics than that come on 

And no i'm not jealous:whistling2::lol2:


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## miffikins

tick said:


> Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay been waiting for these pics so hows you?
> 
> Guess what i got oooooooohh yes 1.1 Kimberly's we want more pics than that come on
> 
> And no i'm not jealous:whistling2::lol2:


So is that another list for babies I'm going on the top of. I realise that sounds wrong, but you know what I mean :lol2:

I do have more pics, I only have til my washing has finished on the internet but I'll try and get some more uploaded just for you Max!


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## miffikins

Ok so this is Sphaerodactylus....I really can't remember the species name off the top of my head! 










This is a REALLY big spider that was in our house, bigger leg span than the tarantula










This is a male_ Anolis Luciae_ displaying at another male










This Gymnopthalmus pleei, a microteiid, but they look like mini skinks!










And this is another female whiptail from last week when we collected 20 of them and relocated them to another offshore island. We weighed, measured, marked and took DNA samples from them. And got bitten and crapped on aswell.

: victory:


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## Papscrunt

amazing iggy
Bet u luv ur job


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## tick

miffikins said:


> So is that another list for babies I'm going on the top of. I realise that sounds wrong, but you know what I mean :lol2:
> 
> I do have more pics, I only have til my washing has finished on the internet but I'll try and get some more uploaded just for you Max!


:rotfl:If i had a list and wasnt married and you really asked me nicley you could go on the top of the list for a baby but lets keep that to 18+:whistling2:But seriously yes if you want.Wheres pics of you? Is that you holding the lizard with muddy hands?


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## miffikins

tick said:


> :rotfl:If i had a list and wasnt married and you really asked me nicley you could go on the top of the list for a baby but lets keep that to 18+:whistling2:But seriously yes if you want.Wheres pics of you? Is that you holding the lizard with muddy hands?


Haha! Men only think of one thing don't they eh?! Not that women are much far behind...anyway. Yes, they are my muddy hands! I get covered in mud everytime we go out as I'm really good at falling over into rivers and down ridges and especially good at falling into holes in banana plantations :2thumb:

Ok so here is me working *ahem*, just so you know, its very hot and humid so I spend the majority of my time looking like a hobo, please don't judge my grubbyness! *waits for photobucket to upload*



















Notice the farmers tan...










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Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
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There are many more but most are too awful to share


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## tick

Nice little green lizard:whistling2::lol2:


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## Andy

excellent stuff bet its brilliant working out there. How'd you go about getting work there?


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## miffikins

tick said:


> Nice little green lizard:whistling2::lol2:


I know I look like I want to eat it, but I don't. Honest. Notice my humidified hair!



Andy said:


> excellent stuff bet its brilliant working out there. How'd you go about getting work there?


Its a volunteer post with Durrell, basically I pay my rent for the first 6 months and work for free. Crap in a way but I'd rather be living here doing this than working behind a bar! I think one of the girls is leaving soon so there will be another post coming up...
: victory:


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## Buriram

*Dna*

As regards your DNA sampling, can you expand ie purpose and methods?

Some questions I am interested in about St. Lucia:

1. Are there facilities for DNA sequencing in St. Lucia or do they send articles for profiling outside of the country?

2. Is PCR (polymerase chain reaction) as popular in amplifying DNA samples (and therefore I am hinting at non-invasive DNA sampling techniques in the field)?

3. Is the purpose of the DNA samples for identification or wider and more far reaching purposes ie establishing decent founder populations with large allelic frequency and thus heterozygosity?

4. Are there many complete genomes logged for taxa on St. Lucia?

Thank you for now.


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## miffikins

Buriram said:


> As regards your DNA sampling, can you expand ie purpose and methods?
> 
> Some questions I am interested in about St. Lucia:
> 
> 1. Are there facilities for DNA sequencing in St. Lucia or do they send articles for profiling outside of the country? *I think my boss sends the samples out, but I'm not exactly sure as we havn't done much work on this project, most of our time is working on a St Lucia parrot survey at the moment.*
> 
> 2. Is PCR (polymerase chain reaction) as popular in amplifying DNA samples (and therefore I am hinting at non-invasive DNA sampling techniques in the field)? *I would assume so but I couldn't answer for definate, I am literally the monkey - I get the data/samples from the field and its passed on to my boss and then to people back in Jersey, I can however find out for you. The way they get the DNA sample from each whiptail is by taking off the bottom 2-3mm of the tail, which seems pretty invasive to me, but when you bare in mind that nearly all the males have regen tails then I guess its not too bad.*
> 
> 3. Is the purpose of the DNA samples for identification or wider and more far reaching purposes ie establishing decent founder populations with large allelic frequency and thus heterozygosity? *I think at first it was used to discern whether there was significant genetic difference between the Maria Major and Maria Minor populations, which there is (some of the morphological differences are very pronounced). Each lizard is assigned a number so we know which DNA is from which animals so they will know further down the line, which individuals have had the highest breeding success. The other week we took males from both islands and translocated them to a new island, but to be honest the Maria Minor males are a fair bit smaller so I doubt their genes will be common in resulting populations. So I think the next step will be translocating Maria Minor females, but as that population is pretty small only one of 2 animals can be taken.*
> 
> 4. Are there many complete genomes logged for taxa on St. Lucia? *I'm going to go with no. If there are any genomes logged it will be that of the parrot and definatly not the iguana. Again, I can find out this info when my boss gets back from Antigua where hes working with the Antiguan Racer. I tend to find that, especially with invertebrates, very little is known. It wouldn't surprise me if most of the inverts hadn't even been identified.
> 
> I've only been out here 6 weeks so I don't have too much info yet, but there is a document on the Durrell website about this work. I will try and get you better answers for these questions when my boss is back*


Cheers : victory:


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## JAM3S

wow i bet you love it out there! it makes good reading keep it up.


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