Field Trips to Davidson College

In April, we took two trips over to Davidson College to see how science is really applied on a college level. The first time, we toured the herpetology lab, where I work, as well as the animal care facility, where we keep all the animals we use for research.

The herpetology lab is where we record and analyze all the data we collect in the field. While we do keep a few animals in the lab, mostly everything has a really quick turn-over time. We capture animals in the field, bring them in to measure them, then get them back out as soon as possible to minimize the disturbance we have on them. Most of you got to hold the king snake we keep in the lab as well as see one of the painted turtles that we captured the day before.

After touring the herpetology lab, we went down to the animal care facility and talked with Amy Becton, director of the facility. We saw the mice, the frogs we use for development studies, the snakes (even the timber rattler!), the gerbils, and the aviary where we keep the Australian zebra finches. Each of these animals is used in research to some capacity. We use the mice in psychology projects as well as in some of the physiology studies (figuring out how the body works). The frogs are for developmental biology classes (watching how a body grows from one cell to the entire organism), and the gerbils and finches are for behavior classes (figuring out why animals do what they do).

 

The next time you came back to Davidson, we went snake tracking with Diana on the Davidson College Ecological Preserve. We spent a few minutes describing the project before we hiked out there. Originally, we were interested in the thermal biology of the snakes. That means that we wanted to know how their body temperature changed over time. The data loggers (the things that recorded their body temperature) didn't work, so we study their micro-habitat instead. We talked again about how a micro-habitat is just a really specific way to describe where an animal lives. We use radio telemetry to track the snakes and record where they are hanging out on the day we track them.

Diana talking about the equipment at the trail head. The main parts to the telemetry equipment are the antenna and the transmitter. We also bring along a GPS to make the location of the snake specifically as well as a clip board with data sheets to record any other data about the microhabitat.

	On the way to the tracking site - we always start where we found the snake last time we were tracking. The telemetry equipment can pick up a signal from as far away as a quarter of a mile, so it's important to get as close as we can to the snake before trying to track it. Otherwise, it would take all day!

Getting close to the snake...

Even closer...

Even though you guys had to get back to school before we located the snake, I hope you at least got a taste of what real field science is like. As you are finding with the coverboard project, sometimes field science is a lot of looking and not a lot of finding. That's what makes finding something in the field that much more exciting. It's amazing to know that there's so much out there when we have to work so hard to find it! Snakes and other critters can be really good at hiding!