The Trials and Tribulations of a Herpetologist Part III

So here it is, the wrap up of my adventures in the desert. At last the time is here and you have -hopefully- read the background story so this makes some sense.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Herpetologist Part I
The Trials and Tribulations of a Herpetologist Part II

If you haven't read these posts...you'll probably be fine anyway. And so, on to the skinning of rabbits...for science.

Near the end of the study my group had been radio tracking lizards for a few weeks, but the thing about this kind of radio tracking is that there is no computer that tells us where exactly this lizard has been, we can only find the lizard a few times a day and record where is was, we have no idea what it was doing the rest of that day. So to solve this problem scientists have come up with a method called "powder tracking." The concept behind this is to first glue fur to the stomach of a lizard, then fill the fur with ultraviolet fluorescent powder that will glow in ultraviolet light. 

Ultraviolet fluorescent powder

To powder track our lizards we glued rabbit fur to their stomach before they woke up and filled the fur with a certain colored powder and let them be, then we caught them again at midday when they're asleep or hiding because of the heat and fill the fur with a different colored powder. 

Phrynie hiding from the heat of the day in a borrowed burrow. On a rather sad note, this is a little dangerous seeing as the owner of this burrow might be home and none to happy about sharing. One of our powder tracked females was killed by what we believe to be was a young rattlesnake when she ventured into the wrong burrow.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Herpetologist Part II

Read The Trials and Tribulations of a Herpetologist Part I if you haven't already.

Now before you say anything  yes I do realize that I didn't actually answer the question of why we skinned rabbits in the last post even though I said I would...I'm just that mean I guess. Yeah, sorry about that.

On with the story, my group of four people, three girls and one boy, were tasked with the job of working with Phrynies, (nickname for the Phrynosoma Platyrhinos that can be seen on my welcome post) what this entailed was catching them, using the biggest ones for radio tracking,track and document the radio tracked lizards four to five times a day, morning (6-7 o'clock), mid-morning (9-10 o'clock), midday (12-2 o'clock), afternoon (5-7 o'clock), and maybe once more if the lizards hadn't yet settled in for the night.

This horned lizard has a red and yellow radio transmitter glued to her back
that allows researchers to find her and study her movement throughout the day.