PROCESSING.

Well guys, here's what we've been doing the past few days.. So we've got all these fruits that we've collected..

They don't all have the black specs (those are buggies. Gross, right?), we just decided to only do a few in that bag (we have more than we had anticipated). Anyway, we have those fruits, and then we rear the buggies out (I explained that in the earlier post)... We slice them in half (or almost in half) and we throw toothpicks in them.




When they're done, and after all the buggies are reared out, the canisters look like this up close...

Not very appetizing, I know. Anyway, Brad takes the canisters, makes sure all the buggies are off of the underside of the lid (tap tap tap tap until they're all on the bottom) and sprays them with ethanol. Poor little things are in fig wasp heaven within a matter of seconds. I hope Fig Wasp St. Peter gently explains to them that it was all done in the name of Science.

Anyway, once the bugs are all doused and "taken care of" (in an Al Pacino way), Brad removes the fig for his job, where he counts the foundresses (Brad's layman's definition of foundresses: female pollinators that have successfully arrived, oviposited, and made it into the ovules of the syconia. They're the ones that pass their genes on. All foundresses are pollinators, but not all pollinators are lucky enough to become foundresses.), and gets the seeds spread out enough to photograph.

Meanwhile, he hands me this fruity little number...

Yup, that's about 200 waspy corpses. It's my job to get them out of the larger canisters, label them, and get them into smaller vials with an eyedropper. It's a sad story, but it's for science.

Then I sit around a bit, usually trying to work ahead a little in the labeling process.

Once Brad's done working, he gives me the remaining seeds after his foundress count (and after he scrapes the seeds off of the meat of the fruit, which looks to be a rather nasty and flustering job), I take a picture of all the seeds, and...







And I put them into a labeled envelope, ready for loggin'.

It's a LONG process, considering we've got about 100 fruits per site. We've done 68 so far. Phew! We're hoping to be done by the end of the day so we can go back to the sites and check the traps. I'll get pictures of them, too!

Good day. I had meat today out of convenience and it isn't as tasty as I remembered it. My tummy hurts a little, so I'll probably mostly avoid it in the future. Remind me if I'm considering it around you.

Still at the Lorimar in La Paz. ¡Hurra por el aire acondicionado!