Amelia-Selected Science Journal Excerpts

Hullo. This is Amelia. It appears that I am posting from Briana's account (?). It was suggested by Amber that I post the following selections from my daily science journal.

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

10:30

Today we explored a hard coral reef.`We saw deadly sea urchins waggling foot long venomous spikes, and gigantic stationary sea cucumbers. The hard coral and sponges came in a mesmerizing variety of shapes, textures and colors. One particular type of sponge came in deep blues, greens and turquoises, while others were bright orange or pink. These grew up from the sea floor in great quantities, and were even more numerous on the mangrove roots that jutted out into the open water. There were branching tree-like corals that grew up from the sand, wrapped all about with spindly brittle stars, and huge domes of brain coral with labyrinthine surfaces. Occasional strands of blueish phlegm extended from one coral to another. I later learned that these were a form of tentacle that one body of coral will shoot out to destroy parts of another coral so as to make space room for itself to expand.

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

22:00

Drizzling and overcast

I have just come back from a night hike in a tropical rain forest. It was an excellent experience. Despite the clouds the stars shone brilliantly. We walked along the road and on a path through the rain forest that we had hiked the previous day. I saw my first red-eyed tree frog: the stereotypical tropical tree frog with brilliant green back, cream-colored underbelly, neon-orange feet, yellow sides with vertical stripes of brilliant blue and fiery red eyes that give it it's name. I was surprised by it's smallness. I had always heard rumors of its toxicity, yet my guide gave me permission to handle him. I later had trouble removing him from my fingers, for his large, sticky feet with flat, circular toes are perfectly developed for clinging to most surfaces. He was splendid. We also saw several varieties of toad. Some lucky fellows in the front of the group spotted a Bufo marinus, a huge, hideous, omnivorous creature capable of shooting spines containing a deadly venom up to ten feet from its back. I had become enamored of the species when I was seven, and had been begging to keep one as a pet ever since. We also saw two flattish, creamy toads perched on leaves, and another fat brown toad, which appeared to differ from a Bufo americanus only in size. I captured a frog whose binomial nomenclature had recently changed to include the name Savage (amusing, since my science project is citing and expanding on the information of Jay M. Savage, this frog's namesake). We also spotted and captured another large frog, which left a copious amount of translucent slime on my hands with the adhesive qualities of elmer's glue. We also spotted a yellow skinned tree frog with semitransparent skin, through which one can distinguish its blue bones.

Apologies for the lack of knowledge on the classification of these animals. I fully intended to identify them, but ran out of time to do so.