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Post by jshuey on Oct 19, 2020 9:32:42 GMT -8
I'm bored and winter is upon us - so I thought I'd start a new thread. Things go wrong in the field - sometimes dangerously, sometimes almost hilariously wrong. I'll start with two.
The very first time I was in the tropics was in 1983. I was in grad school, and I was a vacuum cleaner of insects. I carried an aspirator, a butterfly net, alcohol jars for beetles, all in my photographers vest with every compartment crammed with something that I could kill or store a bug in. You name it, if it had six legs, I could kill it and tuck it away. That was all great until I hit upon some huge blister beetles. I knew enough not to put them in my kill jar or net, so I carefully coaxed them directly into some vials of alcohol. And off I went. Problem was, that the vails went into my pants pockets and started to leak. By the time I noticed, my loins were on fire. Later that night, I developed these 3-inch long water-filled blisters down both of my inner thighs. But they spared my essential hangy-down parts! Still funny to this day, blister beetles being the original "Spanish-fly" and all (at least funny to me).
On that same trip, we were at Palenque in southern Mexico. If you have ever been there, you have seen the huge Maya head sculpture at the intersection of the road that runs from town to the ruins. Back then is was lit up with a bunch of MV lights that were mounted at ground level and pointing to the sky. And the moths - the moths were just crazy around this thing - like a cyclone. I collected over 30 species of sphingids in two nights - and saturniids like you would not believe. Even a couple Dynastes hercules males! It was amazing. Like I said, I was a vacuum cleaner back then, and I couldn't help but notice the predators that worked the grass around the lights. So we started picking this stuff up as well using forceps and dropping them into whirl-pacs of alcohol. Everything from carabids, to spiders, to scorpions and centipedes. When we returned to Ohio State, I passed off those whirl-pacs to the "experts" to look at. Within a day, I was informed that on an annual basis, the main genus of scorpions we collected are responsible for more deaths than snakes in Mexico... Damn - we were just blindly grabbing bugs and moths up off the ground in a wild frenzy for two straight nights.
I must have learned something from that initial exposure. I mean - I'm still alive and my hangy-down parts are still intact...
john
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Post by kevinkk on Oct 19, 2020 9:44:18 GMT -8
Wrong in the field.. I've been out of the country one time, in the 80's to the Dominican Republic with a collecting group, the
tropics is an eye opener for those of us used to the states.
I suppose there were 2 things that happened there, actually connected. It started with another group member telling me he could get me
a spot with 2 guys who were setting up a uv light out of the lodge area in the mountains, and for this spot, I "traded" him some very
good material I'd been collecting. I get in the car, one guy turns around and says- "you get nothing at the light, you wait until we go
into town and streetlight", it was not a fair trade, and in some of those places, there are roaming police who carry automatic weapons.
My only other bad field experiences were with other humans, I hesitate to use the word. But coming back to my tent and finding it ransacked,
or waking up in the morning and thinking "I'm sure I left the kayak right there".
Now I use the suv for everything, sleeping and keeping things safe.
I'm glad you survived your collecting trips John, with everything intact.
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Post by yorky on Oct 19, 2020 9:56:14 GMT -8
I once bent down in a field to take a specimen out of the net and completely split my pants, underpants on show and everything, I didn't go home but boy did I feel ever blade of grass and thorn brushing against my exposed buttocks.On the way back to the car I walked almost the whole way backwards as there were people behind me.
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Post by exoticimports on Oct 19, 2020 16:02:49 GMT -8
I once bent down in a field to take a specimen out of the net and completely split my pants, underpants on show and everything, I didn't go home but boy did I feel ever blade of grass and thorn brushing against my exposed buttocks.On the way back to the car I walked almost the whole way backwards as there were people behind me. My wife slid off the side of our sailboat, caught her swimsuit on a cleat, and tore it straight across at the crotch. I think she would understand your potential for embarrassment. |
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Post by foxxdoc on Oct 20, 2020 7:35:44 GMT -8
Costa Rica;
A wonderful female velvet ant who had shed her wings on he ground. had a bottle and she wouldn"t go in. Used my finger to coax her in and wham she stung me. Immediate pain and numbness in whole arm. I'm alone. Went back to camp safely and had some Prednisone ( never leave home without it ) and a warm beer. It took several days to be normal.
A memory !!!
Tom |
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Post by nomihoudai on Oct 20, 2020 9:33:22 GMT -8
Both the blister beetle story and velvet ant story sound very painful.
I also lost a pair of pants when out collecting on a mountain and then getting caught in a thunderstorm at the top of the mountain. It had ripped from jumping around, and I kept it together with duct tape, but because of the rain that fell apart.
Another time in Indonesia I got Salmonella from eating chicken out of a drawer.
That's pretty much everything that happened. I don't feel like I have ever been in danger in my life.
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Post by exoticimports on Oct 20, 2020 10:04:21 GMT -8
Both the blister beetle story and velvet ant story sound very painful. I also lost a pair of pants when out collecting on a mountain and then getting caught in a thunderstorm at the top of the mountain. It had ripped from jumping around, and I kept it together with duct tape, but because of the rain that fell apart. . Im sorry, that is too funny. I don’t suppose you have photographs? |
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Post by rayrard on Oct 20, 2020 11:10:16 GMT -8
I've had my share of rednecks in the woods but they would always just yell out and we'd get out of the area so no guns or gunshots.
The closest to danger besides fire ant nests was when we were colelcting in the pine woods of SC and we were jumping in and out of big patches of Black-eyed Susans grabbing Yehl Skippers, Byssus Skippers, and Texan Crescents. Then my friend calls me over a little up the path and points out an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake extended and crawling down in the same flowers right alongside the road. We stopped jumping in the flowers after that, or made sure to look and lead with the net handle before entering.
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Post by exoticimports on Oct 21, 2020 5:01:40 GMT -8
I was asked to lead a bug hike at a local park. Lots of families came, of course with kids of all ages.
In the recreation building I spent time talking about the importance of insects, etc (you know the story.) Then I told them the wonder of our area is that there's no poisonous anything- no venomous snakes or spiders, nothing that can kill you. It's perfectly safe to roam around the great outdoors.
As a group we walked into a field, and within one minute I ran smack dab into the only Bald Face Hornet nest I've ever seen near ground level.
I ran screaming "run away! run away!" while stripping off my clothing which was covered with hornets.
We finished the hike, albeit with my 18+ stings. And the crowd was a bit sceptical that our area is safe to roam.
Chuck
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Post by exoticimports on Oct 21, 2020 5:35:46 GMT -8
I was to lead a bug hike for the local elementary school (grades 3-6) so got a ride there.
Incidentally, I found a mating pair of cecropia on the side of the school, which was great, but not really part of the story.
All the kids loaded onto the school bus and I followed.
As I stood in the bus door, a teacher handed me an open metal case with two syringes (there were no Epi Pens then.) "Jimmy is deathly allergic to bees" she explained. "If he gets stung, you have to inject him with this."
I was 13 years old.
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Post by eurytides on Oct 21, 2020 9:36:02 GMT -8
Was the teacher not trained to use the syringes?
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Post by exoticimports on Oct 21, 2020 12:33:12 GMT -8
Was the teacher not trained to use the syringes? The teacher that handed me the syringes didn't get on the bus. They had one teacher on the bus already, but #1 gave the syringes and instructions to ME! Besides which, though this was a long time ago, I don't think teachers were taught to use syringes even then. Today, they can't even spell correctly. We're in a supposedly top ranked school district, and I am unimpressed to say the least. |
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Post by kevinkk on Oct 21, 2020 18:39:10 GMT -8
My first job outside of helping my Dad roof houses, was at 12 being a volunteer at the then new Insect Zoo at the Portland Zoo,
a lot of us probably had great experiences in our teens pursuing an unusual hobby.
I had an experience with bumble bees, after reading a book claiming, and it's probably true- if you grab a bee just right by the wings,
it can't sting you, I tried it twice.
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Post by nomihoudai on Oct 22, 2020 7:55:28 GMT -8
Im sorry, that is too funny. I don’t suppose you have photographs? No, and I am really happy about this. We were soaked to our underwear, so any camera might have taken damage. Two friends were with me. While walking down the mountain and having the helicopter of the alpine rescue team flying over us one of them said "this would have been a lot more fun if we had a bottle of schnapps with us". |
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Post by jshuey on Oct 22, 2020 10:36:03 GMT -8
I listening to a call drone on - so I'll add one more.
We were in southern Belize, and had hired three Maya guides and two our their skinny-ass horses, to take us up into the southern Maya Mountains for 10 days. We met at their village at about noon, loaded the horses up, and started the uphill climb. After about an hour, it started to rain, and soon after that we started following a logging road that was pure mud. Every step you took added an inch layer of mud to the bottom of your boots, it was so bad it would squish out at the sides of your feet, looking like solid mud snowshoes after a few steps. And you would have to stop every 10 or so steps to clean 2-3 pounds of mud off the bottom of your feet. It was miserable, and took us about 4 hours to get to our first camp - normally a 2.5 hour hike.
So we set up camp in the rain in the forest along a stream. Us gringos all had new hammock tents which, other than in our back yards, we had never really tested out. Two things happened that night which set the tone for the next 10 days. First, we did not think about the impact that just a few hundred meters in altitude would have on temperature. It gets really cool up there, and as it cooled off, the dew fell on us inside our tents, We were literally freezing once that happened almost dripping wet at about 65 f. That woke us all up, and we were chatting in the dark among our hammocks, when I heard a huge SPLASH. Paul's rainfly had filled up with water, and at some point, just emptied out on top of him. After a lot of cussing, he figured out what had happened (rainfly has to be pulled really tight in order to shed water). The rest of us checked our rainflies, and I could feel a huge reservoir of water directly over me. I managed to move it and drain it over the edge without getting soaked - I had to do this three more times that night.
It stopped raining by morning, and we hiked upwards to Edwards Central Camp in the higher karst mountains. We now knew the theory to our rainflies, and did ok with these. But everything we owned was damp, and honestly, we were traveling super light - just a couple of shirts and pants each. Again, the dew fell about an hour after nightfall, and we all woke up shivering. Literally, any exposed skin was wet from the dew, and none of us could stop shivering. You would fall back to sleep every now and then, but just for a while. At some point that night, I said to myself, just 8 more nights, I can do this.... And I did. I lost about 20 pounds on that trip, mostly from shivering at night!
We used those hammocks several more times over the years in Belize, without a hitch. It really just requires that you have a dry micropyle blanket both below you and on top, and they are wonderful for trips like this.
John
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