A peek at some of Guam's wildlife

When I was a kid, I loved reading books about animals, and I can remember going to the animal section of my elementary school library repeatedly.  I loved the nonfiction stuff too.  Read them all.  But that nonfiction science thing can be funny.  I went through a dinosaur phase and learned all about the terrible lizards, including the "thunder lizards" or brontosauruses (brontosauri?), only to find out about two years ago at an exhibit in the Lawrence Hall of Science that they never really existed.  It was sort of like learning that Pluto had been demoted.  As a scientist, I appreciate the process and progress.  As we learn more and more about the world around us, we make more predictions, test them, and revise our theories in order to be consistent with our evidence.  

Things like this make me sad.

This year, I'm on a quest for a friend that may take the entire time I'm here to complete.  There is a seemingly mythical creature called the blue-tailed skink (and I've just learned that only the juveniles and females have blue tails, missy, so you're not making it easy for me) that has been declining in numbers for the past few decades on Guam because of an invasive species called - no, NOT the brown tree snake - the curious skink.  As its name suggests, these "curious" critters are more likely to be seen than the one I'm looking for because they're bold.  I'm sure I've seen bazillions of them.  The quest continues, and I never leave home without a camera.  And I will NOT post someone else's pictures of these critters as a matter of pride.

And speaking of snakes, this is my only evidence of brown tree snakes on the island so far:

At least, I'm assuming this used to be a brown tree snake.  Sort of sad.  I've also learned, through my skink research, that these snakes used to be noctural, but have been adapting to their changing food supply options and have become more diurnal as evidenced by records of snake-induced power outages.  The island is losing millions of dollars every year because of these outages, hence the traps.  I saw this trap on Cocos Island, a teeny tiny island off the southern tip of Guam, last Christmastime.

While there aren't many street signs in this place, as previously mentioned, I did stumble upon a sign for - I kid you not - Sesame St. before my always-carry-a-camera rule was established.  (I may come back and update this post if I ever make it out there again.)  I've even seen some characters from the show here on Guam too.  This is Grover, who lives in a local pet store and appears to have a bad reputation.  

I also found one of Kermit's friends in the garage under our house.  The yellow is a parking space curb for size comparisons.  It was dark, so the shot's a little blurry.

This critter was my welcome wagon and was in the driveway the first day I arrived on Guam.  This is a coconut crab from front and back, but a good distance away.  I was not brave enough for a size comparison shot, though it was about as wide as a volleyball.  These things are creepy since they remind me of spiders, and some other things I've previously posted about. 

 

Perhaps the craziest animal I've seen so far is the dog that rides the carabao [pronounced not like caribou (car-i-boo), but bow as in "take a bow" (car-a-bow)].  Both this dog and owner should do just that for being able to do this great trick.  I've seen this threesome walking down the side of the road on several occasions, but I'm always driving so can't snap my own picture.  I lifted the one below from another woman's blog - click the image to check it out.  The other carabao posed for me and offered me a ride on Liberation Day last summer.  (I'll have to comment more on this holiday at some point in the future.  That's a whole other ball of wax, as they say.)

Perhaps you're familiar with NYC's Cow Parade that happened in 2000.  I'm not sure why I saw some of these cows in person, but I remember seeing them so must have been in Manhattan that year.  Well Guam has something similar - and there are painted carabaos (not sure if it's right, but I vote for the plural of carabao to be carabao) all over the island too.  These are the only two I've captured so far.

 

Calvo's happens to be my car insurance company.  I have typhoon insurance on my car, so really like this statue.

Finally, to round out this post let's look at two examples of some aquatic wildlife.  I found this on last weekend's dive at a site called Fishbowl, which disappointingly did not live up to its name.  We had an annoying current that kept us working hard to not crash into the coral and didn't really see many critters.  The first time I saw this eely thing from a distance I thought it was a piece of rope that had been lost from a boat or something.  Only after being right on top of it did I realize it was actually alive, and sort of ugly.  

 

In case you can't quite tell, it's pushing the sand into what I can only assume to be its mouth with those tentacle-like protrusions.  I'm still not quite sure what this wormy/snakey thing is after looking online, but if anyone out there knows, please leave a comment.

And finally, in honor of Shark Week, this is Ripley's impersonation.  Imagine a fin on her head, and she's quite scary.  Otherwise, try not to drown from laughing.  She was attempting to "save" her owner, because K sat down in the two feet of water she'd just been standing in and freaked the dog out.  

 

Blog Resurrection: Guam

When I started telling people Kerriann was planning to take a job in Guam, the most common response was something like, "I don't even know where that is." I was once one of those people too, and since you can take the teacher out of the school, but you can't take the schooling out of the teacher (or something...), here's some information about my current location.

Guam is about 1500 mi from Tokyo. It is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands, which are located next to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean. If Mount Everest at 8,848 meters (29,029 ft) was set in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, there would be 2,076 meters (6,811 ft) of water left above it. That's roughly the elevation of Lake Tahoe. Technically, if you measure Mt. Lamlam on Guam from the bottom of the ocean floor, I'm living in the shadow of one of the tallest mountains on the planet. Technically Mauna Kea in Hawaii is a bit taller, but I didn't quite get all the geological reasons why. (I never took geology in school.)

I found out today that to the east of the island is the Pacific Ocean but to the west is the Philippine Sea. Who knew? The north end of the island is mostly naval bases, and Kerriann hasn't taken me that direction yet. The southern part of the island is very rural and mostly jungle. I got the southern loop tour today and saw a bajillion palm trees, coconuts fallen on the side of the road, wild (boonie) chickens and dogs (though not as many as K has led me to believe are here), and not a lot else. I haven't seen a single brown tree snake yet, though I hear they are nocturnal. We drove past Magellan's landing site, though I was too put off by the heat to get out of the air conditioned car to read the plaque. It amazes me that in the 1500s Magellan et. al. sailed around the Pacific Ocean in their little ships. Lunch was at Jeff's Pirates Cove, where I ate Greek food and drank a mai tai.

The midsection of the island, zoomed in here, seems to be the most populated. Tamuning is our very touristy town (the nearby area is known as Little Waikiki), located around the two bays. This is what I'd call "civilization," where you can expect to see business establishments on the side of the road instead of just trees.

And when I say business, I mean business. The largest K-Mart in the world means business. I hope to avoid this store as long as possible, though I've been in some very cool furniture stores, several surf shops looking for a bathing suit that fits (who goes to an island on vacation without a bathing suit, and what island doesn't sell them?), and several grocery stores. Eggs in Guam - not fresh. Cartons had June 1 dates on them. Not sure if the boonie chickens are to blame or not. Also, in three months Kerriann was unable to find any Diet Dr. Pepper. In three days I found two stores that carry it.

Finally, we've zoomed in enough to see my 'hood. Click the map to see a larger image. (I think it's cool that Google maps has places labeled in what I assume is Japanese.) The bottom right corner of the map is our bank of 17 townhouses - Tasi 17. We will be getting our gym membership from one of the myriad of local hotels at some point, as I've been tasked with checking them out and comparing where we'll get the best deal for the most stuff. (I hope you can feel my excitement through the computer.) The most important perk will be easy beach access. In addition to the Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood not far from here, there's an area called "Guamdeo Drive." It's a block or two of high-end shopping that caters to the Japanese tourists, and Tiffani's sucked Kerriann in a day or two ago. That store is her kryptonite, though her new scuba diving hobby promises to bankrupt her first. I think tomorrow we'll be going out to try all her new gear. I tried mine out today. Stay tuned for the diving update.

Now to try for the fourth night in a row to sleep through the night. I do not understand jetlag at all, and it's been frustrating me to no end, but it makes for early swimming adventures before the heat of the day sets in. If only I could wake up that early when I have a job to go to.