Adventures on San Cristobal

Jaime teaches at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito's satellite campus on San Cristobal. He graciously invited the crew out to visit San Cristobal Island for a week of mistnetting, behaviour, and fun!

On the ferry to San Cristobal

One of the most interesting things, as Darwin himself noted, is the among island variation about species. For example, we noticed that the lava lizards on San Cristobal seemed to have more patches and more saturation in their red patches.

Field sampling was similar to Santa Cruz, though we were able to spot some other lovely creatures such as this Galápagos blue butterfly.

Mammals, of course.

Field work on San Cristobal

And some other cool invertebrates!

And of course, what we had come to study - some Darwin's Finches!

Jaime gave a seminar to the Erasmus Mundus Masters students, which was quite interesting to see the wide range of research that Jaime and his collaborators (such as us!) are working on.

And Angela and I gave a talk to Jaime's student's about the work we have been doing as well. Angela came last year with colleagues from the University of Utah studying the finches and mockingbirds and how an invasive parasite, Philornis downsi has been affecting them.