Back in Action (& Mama on the move)

The technical difficulty has been corrected. Apparently something chewed through the ethernet cable. The Lab Team replaced the damaged cable with a higher grade cord last week and it seems to have fixed the issue.

The pictures below give an idea of what it looks like behind the scenes setting up the camera.

Jeremy has to wade through waist-deep water to get to access to the nest.

When this picture was taken, we had just heard the female slip into the water.

According to the Jerper, he has not experienced a nesting female aggressively defend her nest at any of the sites that he's monitored

I am not sure how comforting it is being armed with nothing more than this bit of knowledge for the team member who is on "Mama watch".

Getting to the research aspect of this project, the lab collected data on the nest characteristics including: nest dimensions, clutch size (number of eggs), egg dimensions, and implanting passive temperature loggers into the nest cavity to measure internal temps throughout the incubation period. Finally, the lab installs a motion activated trail camera to get documentation of number and duration of visits from the mother and potential predators (there is a manuscript in process for the data of what we have found so far Arkansas Alligators).

Finally, we have seen the female be pretty active this last week. If you go to the livestream at night, you will be watching for her eye shine (any takers for a Chamberlain Herp Lab nighttime field trip?). It seems as if she hangs out to watch for predators throughout the night but lately she has also been visiting during the day. We are getting really excited about the idea of getting to see her uncover the nest cavity and help bring the hatchlings down to the water.