This created an extremely dry environment, with the average temperature hovering around 80 degrees and getting down to about 70 in the evening.
Chameleons GALORE! So many chameleons. There are also birds like the paradise flycatcher, cuckoo roller, and vasa parrots. We saw a magnificent “designer” snail, as big as your fist, with a blonde spiral that transitioned to jet black, and a gorgeous black and white leopard print lip. We suspect it’s a species that's new to science!
We watched dwarf lemurs and mouse lemurs emerge from their sleeping holes in the evening to forage on fruits and flowers. We heard the tantalizing calls of the iconic ring-tailed lemur, but never managed to track this animal down. I spotted a stunning, vibrantly-colored rainbow milkweed locust, which made my day!
There were also scorpions! Under UV light, scorpions will glow like stars. With a UV flashlight in hand, we quickly learned our camp was infested with scorpions and that their favorite spot was our latrine (which is where we go to the bathroom – yikes.) And of course, so many leeches! I collected a total of 1,451 over the ten days at camp. One leech stood out as having striking turquoise patterning on its back.
On our nightly hunt for scorpions with the UV flashlight, we discovered a tiny scorpion in the jaws of a massive CRICKET (you read that right!). We were initially unsure as to “who had who,” but sure enough we watched as a cricket the length of your hand walked off with a scorpion the size of a dime in its jaws.
