Dung Beetles!

Feb 12

Sorting began today. It was possibly one of the most repulsive things I’ve been involved in. Not only was there the stench of rotting dung beetle, but there were also fumes wafting up from the alcohol they were being stored in. I stuffed tissues up my nostrils so I wouldn’t smell it but it still got through. We got through sorting about half of the sites and there were around 12 morpho-species that we distinguished per site. But we have no idea if we’re correct because we have to find out what the different species look like and there are lots more species inside the groups we separated out. And there’s thousands and thousands of them. Seriously. All in all, it’s the hardest project out of all of them. I really should have studied butterflies instead. But now I’m stuck with this. At least I really like my group, they’re all really fun and easy to work with. (my view later changed a LOT) After lunch we decided to take a half hour break from sorting and I went swimming. But soon everyone was swimming and it was such a beautiful day out that we just couldn’t bring ourselves back to our beetles. So we swam and splashed around and pushed our clothed TA in the pool, etc. until it was time to go out into the field again. We didn’t see anything too exciting—just the usually impala and baboons. And we also saw a bush buck (I think it’s called that) which South Africans believe Bambi was. But obviously Bambi was a deer. We tried to explain it by pointing out the American skunk Bambi was friends with, but they weren’t buying it. Oh and we also saw a Ground Hornbill which are very rare now, so that was cool to see. They're slowly going extinct, and my South African friend says she hasn't seen one in years. We got our field work done by 6—the fastest yet—and went out for a swim in the big Olympic sized swimming pool in the staff village. On the way we passed lots of mongoose which were so cute. And then dinner and a lecture and then BUNS OF STEEL. I haven’t mentioned this yet but one of the staff memorized this exercise tape called Buns of Steel which is this really intense workout. So we did that and it was really hard but also fun. And then to counter it we ate some Cadbury chocolate. Mmmm…