Agua Blanca: A Commune in the Desert

After we did turtle captures one morning, I rallied the other volunteers to get out and see something touristy. We settled on Agua Blanca, a traditional commune located in the dry tropical scrub forest (my own name for the biome) a few miles inland from Puerto López. The commune is entirely within Machalilla National Park. It costs $5 to enter.

Here we are, five official turtle volunteers and one interloper!

Normally the landscape would be greener since we're in the wet season, but there has been a prolonged drought.

We passed a group of women doing laundry in the dribbling stream.

These kids were happy to take a break from their game to pose for a picture.

Agua Blanca is famous for three things: the sulfurous mud pool, the archaeological museum, and bird watching. For unclear reasons we chose to focus on the rotten-egg mud.

The sign depicted a blue crowned motmot, a bird I also saw in real life.

The motmot posed in perfect view while I fumbled for my camera but hid in the thicket as soon as I was ready...

Vanessa took the first leap into the sulfurous mud pool.

Soon, we were all mud ninjas.

The mud is supposed to be healing for the skin. We coated ourselves with the thick gray sludge and let it dry into crunchy elephant skin. Then we jumped back into the pool to wash it off. My skin definitely felt smoother, but maybe I was just glad to be clean again!

On the way back, we followed one of our Puerto López friends on a "shortcut." We ended up lost, winding our way through a dry riverbed canyon, but at least we saw plenty of animals along the way.

The majority of the "wildlife" I saw was actually free-ranging livestock from the commune.

An injured mare and her foal rested in the dry riverbed.

These kids suckled like maniacs.

There were also pigs and chickens galore. I kept hanging back by myself to take photos, and a couple times I got nervous when I realized I was alone with the semi-feral livestock. At one point a pack of goats materialized from the hills and starting running down the road straight for me. I felt like Simba during the wildebeast stampede. I sprinted down the road yelling, "GUYS!!!!!!" My hiking partners scrambled up or downhill to let the excited goats pass. Then we realized the goats were harmless -- they just wanted to follow us and get their heads scratched! It was all very hilarious... in hindsight.

These goats just wanted to be friends.

We saw a bit of wild nature, too.

A papery wasp nest.

A groove billed ani.

A yellow rumped cacique.

A long tailed mockingbird.

Two gray breasted martins and two ball mosses.

We had arranged for the pickup-truck taxi to come back for us at 5:00pm. We waited around til 5:40 when the truck pulled up, right on (Ecuadorian) time. I'm glad we took the initiative to see this little corner of Ecuador!

Three girls and three goats waiting outside the Agua Blanca church.

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Every Dead Animal I Can Get My Hands On

"Aside from background reading, just start cutting up the head muscles of every dead animal you can get your hands on -- that's the best textbook!"

These were the words of my summer research mentor for the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs REU. I was thrilled to be selected as a research assistant for this competitive program. When I inquired to my mentor on how to best prepare for the internship, I expected a list of literature to read and maybe a couple practical skills to work on, like learning to drive a stick-shift car. But I was happy to oblige this hands-on approach!

Dead animal heads it is.

And three extras, just in case.

One of my fellow volunteers cooked a delicious Thai coconut fish soup for lunch yesterday and kindly saved me the six fish heads. I tracked down the fisherman today to ask what kind of fish these were, and he told me they were sol. They didn't remind me of the flatfish we call "sole" in English, so I did some research and I think they might be glasseye, Heteropriacanthus cruentatus, which is called tira al sol in Spanish.

My ghetto dissection lab.

Ready to cut up some dead animal heads!

I set up my own ghetto laboratory on the front porch, complete with tweezers from the turtle-capture kit, children's craft scissors, and a kitchen knife. I laid out newspaper and plastic bags as my lab bench, and used a couple biology dissection guides I found on the internet. I brought out a bucket of water and a rag so I wouldn't be smearing raw fish juice on my camera every time I took a photo.

I soon had a lab partner: the house cat, Panga.

Panga made sure to clean up all the scraps -- even the ones I wasn't quite done with yet.

My pre-dissection notes taken from online biology manuals.

The Gills

I started with the gills, since they were the easiest organ to investigate without cutting into the fish.

The scaly sheet of skin over the gills is called the operculum or gill cover.

When you lift the operculum, you can see the gills.

There are four gill arches on either side of the fish.

Here are the gills removed from the body.

Each gill arch contains gill filaments (feathery tissue on left) and rakers (poky appendages on right).

These are my gill sketches from after the dissection.

The Mouth

I read that a superior (upward facing) mouth indicates that the fish eats prey from below, whereas an inferior (downward facing) mouth means the fish eats prey from above. I think this fish's mouth is pointing slightly up.

Before cutting, you can see the maxilla (upper jaw), mandible (lower jaw), and tongue.

Isn't it weird how similar a fish tongue looks to a human tongue? Fish are our ancestors, after all.

After cutting, you can see down the throat past the gills.

Looking down the throat, you can see the gill rakers on the inside of the four gill arches.

Here is the mandible (lower jaw) separated from the body.

Rows of tiny, spiky teeth were evident when I pulled back the lips.

Here is the premxilla in full protrusion.

I noticed that I could protrude the premaxilla by putting pressure on the bridge of the nose, almost like a knee-hitting reflex. I couldn't capture it in a photo so I took the following video: