Things that go ouch

Ben will tell us when to stay away from something. But if you want to study them.

Here is a list of venomous snakes,  I think there are 12 of them. Why don't you write down the names of them and how you might identify them. You can even draw them in your journal.

and here is one on stingrays, but they don't all live in the yucatan. Can you find out which ones live in the waters near Mexico?

Leatherbacks

I don't know very much about turtles. I've started to look up leatherbacks. They are endangered, although they are doing a bit better in the Atlantic...but dramatically reducing in the Pacific.

On average they weigh 300 lbs...The largest leatherback ever found was an 8.5-ft-long (2.6-m-long) male weighing 2,020 lbs (916 kg) that washed up on the west coast of Wales in 1988. That's taller than a man! A Big man!

Check out this video of a leatherback chasing down a lobster. It looks like it likes to east lobsters as much as Joe does...

And this video really brings home how vulnerable baby turtles are...I mean they are tiny little things with no one to protect them.  Maybe when we are down there we can help protect the babies....I can't believe that crab which isn't much bigger than the baby can just drag it down into the sand with it.

I don't understand why the temperature of the nest changes how many male and female turtles are born. I wonder why that is?

And guess what, we don't even know there life span. I bet there is still a lot that we don't know.

And yeah, it looks to me if that turtle gets too close to you it can bite your nose off.

I wanna meet an Iguana

While I was down at Sian Ka' an last time one of my friends told me that she thinks iguanas protect humans.  Now I don't know why they would want to protect us...but she told me a story about how she was sitting on the beach and there was an iguana sitting on a stone next to her. She left some chewed gum on the beach and the next morning there was sticky white stuff all over her bags. She thinks the iguana wanted to bring her the gum cuz she left it on the beach.  I interpret that story differently (indeed if the iguana actually did bring her the gum...i think most likely she dropped it in her bag instead of on the beach) -- the iguana was protecting the beach, not her! Or he thinks she left it as a gift but thought it was a terrible gift so just threw up all over her stuff.

Personally I think they can be a pretty confused reptile.  When I was there last time this one big guy kept head-bobbing at me and then later on at a huge bird (one of the herons maybe). Head bobbing is what they do to tell the female iguana that they want some action...that's true...i think it is also to say I'm the big guy on campus, king of the castle, the one with the best genes for reproduction. Maybe it just felt insecure and wanted some attention. Of course I head-bobbed back at him which probably really confused him!

Anyway...we will be meeting lots of iguanas on our trip.  I don't really know how to tell them all apart or which ones live in the Yucatan. I'm pretty sure though that we might see the Black Spiny-Tailed. 
Or the Campeche Spiny-Tailed (get a look at the genus name -- it's a pretty funny name...alfredschmidti...like that's a Latin word?) . The Campeche Spinytail is extant to Mexico. Do you remember what that means?

It looks like there are two competing theories about how we should classify iguanas. Looks like some guy named Frost thinks that instead of sub-families, all the different type of iguana should have their own genus.  I wonder why that is so important? And if they can change how we classify iguanas...can't we find a better home for our kinkajou friend who is wandering around with the carnivora clan?

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Lacertilia
Infraorder:	Iguania
Family:	Iguanidae
Genera
Amblyrhynchus Brachylophus Conolophus Ctenosaura Cyclura Dipsosaurus Iguana Sauromalus