Proteja Los Animales

Hello all a zoologist abroad here again.

Its my last few weeks here of Panama. Not too much news to report, we are starting to close down many nests for experiments, collecting samples and making sure all our data is ready to be brought back to the UK for analysis.

For this post today I thought I would share with you some of the brilliant animal spots we have had here. Much of the country is built up of National Parks and many of the people who work in these areas are very proud of their natural heritage (although this is not always clear from the volumes of rubbish seen in the cities) they have some fantastic wildlife here that photos do not really do justice too.

So as this road sign suggests "Proteja Los Animales" as they really are wonderful!

Night census' are often a great time for animal spots and we have seen some rather large boa's, possums and crocodiles.

There are many stunning butterflies here but they fly past so quickly that it is almost impossible to take a photo of them in the forest. We ask to go for an explore in the entomology collection in STRI and I took some photos of the following beauties (obviously some wasps in there too!).

There are numerous others of creepy crawlies around Galeta, here is just a few we have seen.

Working on the Caribbean means there is lots of great sea-life, will definitely miss just being able to go for a quick snorkel after work.

However, of all the animals I have seen my favourites have to be the sloths. They are really beautiful creatures and here we are lucky enough to see some almost everyday! We have seen both species of sloth, the two and three toed, and even some with their babies.

Two-toed sloth

Tree hugging three-toed sloth