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How this guy is not dead I have no clue.
Or better yet, just use the random button: http://evopropinquitous.tumblr.com/random
Or better yet, just use the random button: http://evopropinquitous.tumblr.com/random
Things I Learned as a Field Biologist #323
One day, you may notice that there is a bite that simply will not heal.
As the days pass, it may become red and begin to weep.
Now it’s a small sore.
Perhaps you dab at it with a bandage throughout the day. Perhaps you smear it with any number of ointments or unguents, maybe applying a poultice or two for good measure. Perhaps you try drying it out, setting it in what sun you can get. Perhaps you also try poking at it with something, because it really looks awfully squishy… and strangely, the poking doesn’t hurt at all…
And still it won’t heal…
And now it’s spreading… so that it looks as if your skin is gradually, wetly melting from the bite outwards…
Now is the time to worry:
You may have cutaneous leishmaniasis.
If you get a potentially disfiguring and possibly fatal tropical disease like cutaneous leishmaniasis, there are a few things you should remember:
1) Nothing you put on it will help… you need a doctor. Now.
2) And I mean right now. SEE A DOCTOR NOW. If you value the smooth integrity of the skin around the area where your sore has appeared, and they can appear anywhere, DO NOT travel back to whatever country you came from because you think they have ‘better medical care’. In this case, they do not. The doctors near your field site will diagnose you right away. They’ve seen it. They know what to do. The doctors in your home country will be persnickety about your ‘self-diagnosing’. They know absolutely nothing about tropical diseases. And so they will take weeks sending those samples to the CDC to be identified, which they have to do before they can administer treatment because:
3) Since the parasite is actually a systemic infection, even though the only outward sign is the slowly spreading sore, it is actually infiltrating many parts of your body. It is in your spleen, your liver, and your blood. The only way to really get rid of it is to poison yourself. With antimony. A heavy metal. For a month. During which time you will be both bedridden, nauseated, and in pain… but look on the bright side: at least the Leishmania will be stopped before it can begin eating the cartilage under your face.
So if you have a curious sore that is painless and yet slowly melting away the skin around it, call a doctor immediately, and get ready.
It’s going to be a very long month.
One day, you may notice that there is a bite that simply will not heal.
As the days pass, it may become red and begin to weep.
Now it’s a small sore.
Perhaps you dab at it with a bandage throughout the day. Perhaps you smear it with any number of ointments or unguents, maybe applying a poultice or two for good measure. Perhaps you try drying it out, setting it in what sun you can get. Perhaps you also try poking at it with something, because it really looks awfully squishy… and strangely, the poking doesn’t hurt at all…
And still it won’t heal…
And now it’s spreading… so that it looks as if your skin is gradually, wetly melting from the bite outwards…
Now is the time to worry:
You may have cutaneous leishmaniasis.
If you get a potentially disfiguring and possibly fatal tropical disease like cutaneous leishmaniasis, there are a few things you should remember:
1) Nothing you put on it will help… you need a doctor. Now.
2) And I mean right now. SEE A DOCTOR NOW. If you value the smooth integrity of the skin around the area where your sore has appeared, and they can appear anywhere, DO NOT travel back to whatever country you came from because you think they have ‘better medical care’. In this case, they do not. The doctors near your field site will diagnose you right away. They’ve seen it. They know what to do. The doctors in your home country will be persnickety about your ‘self-diagnosing’. They know absolutely nothing about tropical diseases. And so they will take weeks sending those samples to the CDC to be identified, which they have to do before they can administer treatment because:
3) Since the parasite is actually a systemic infection, even though the only outward sign is the slowly spreading sore, it is actually infiltrating many parts of your body. It is in your spleen, your liver, and your blood. The only way to really get rid of it is to poison yourself. With antimony. A heavy metal. For a month. During which time you will be both bedridden, nauseated, and in pain… but look on the bright side: at least the Leishmania will be stopped before it can begin eating the cartilage under your face.
So if you have a curious sore that is painless and yet slowly melting away the skin around it, call a doctor immediately, and get ready.
It’s going to be a very long month.
Things I Learned as a Field Biologist #129
When studying monkeys in a reserve solely maintained for the purpose of protecting the insanely high endemic biodiversity and number of wasps and bees living therein (because, yes, such things exist), the ways in which one may be stung are infinite in their variety. These include:
1) While literally running after monkeys down a hill so steep you’re doing that frak-my-legs-can’t-catch-up-with-my-momentum kind of run. You’re mainly concerned with dodging trees (as you very well should be), but you should also watch out for the three wasp nests you’ll hit on the way down. At face level. It is the wet season, after all.
8 stings. Mainly on the face and arms.
2) While slowly, deliberately crossing a river on precarious stones, until the monkeys attack the fire wasp nest 20 meters above your head. And then continuously inside your shirt and hair as you run alongside the river. And then STILL in your hair even though you’re completely submerged in said river, because you really should have worn a hat today, stupid. It is the dry season, after all.
23 stings. Mainly on the scalp and neck, but also on your torso and arms.
3) While cleaning the trail with your machete. DO NOT INSTINCTIVELY SWAT IT AWAY WITH YOUR MACHETE.
1 sting. On the upper lip. And a really close call with that machete, you ass.
4) While just standing there, minding your own business. And you’d better run this time, because these particular bees are Africanized. And they’ll follow you for a kilometer. And they won’t stop stinging. And the buzzing is terrifying and low. And this can happen every day because the killer bees interbred with the local bee farmers’ hives. Because invasive species are life ruiners.
14 stings. Mainly on the face, neck, and hands. But that’s pretty lucky, because your field partner got 78 and had to go to the hospital.
So if you’re studying monkeys in a reserve solely maintained for the purpose of protecting the insanely high endemic biodiversity and number of wasps and bees living therein, and you hear a buzz, don’t just stand there…
Run.
When studying monkeys in a reserve solely maintained for the purpose of protecting the insanely high endemic biodiversity and number of wasps and bees living therein (because, yes, such things exist), the ways in which one may be stung are infinite in their variety. These include:
1) While literally running after monkeys down a hill so steep you’re doing that frak-my-legs-can’t-catch-up-with-my-momentum kind of run. You’re mainly concerned with dodging trees (as you very well should be), but you should also watch out for the three wasp nests you’ll hit on the way down. At face level. It is the wet season, after all.
8 stings. Mainly on the face and arms.
2) While slowly, deliberately crossing a river on precarious stones, until the monkeys attack the fire wasp nest 20 meters above your head. And then continuously inside your shirt and hair as you run alongside the river. And then STILL in your hair even though you’re completely submerged in said river, because you really should have worn a hat today, stupid. It is the dry season, after all.
23 stings. Mainly on the scalp and neck, but also on your torso and arms.
3) While cleaning the trail with your machete. DO NOT INSTINCTIVELY SWAT IT AWAY WITH YOUR MACHETE.
1 sting. On the upper lip. And a really close call with that machete, you ass.
4) While just standing there, minding your own business. And you’d better run this time, because these particular bees are Africanized. And they’ll follow you for a kilometer. And they won’t stop stinging. And the buzzing is terrifying and low. And this can happen every day because the killer bees interbred with the local bee farmers’ hives. Because invasive species are life ruiners.
14 stings. Mainly on the face, neck, and hands. But that’s pretty lucky, because your field partner got 78 and had to go to the hospital.
So if you’re studying monkeys in a reserve solely maintained for the purpose of protecting the insanely high endemic biodiversity and number of wasps and bees living therein, and you hear a buzz, don’t just stand there…
Run.
Things I Learned as a Field Biologist #108
If there is a sudden deluge in the Amazon and you’re carrying delicate, water-sensitive telemetry equipment, do not attempt to save the equipment by running back to the biological station…
You may fall, and in putting your hand out to break that fall, inadvertently place it in a pile of jaguar poop…
You may then absentmindedly scratch some of the 200+ seed tick bites you have all over your body from 3 days prior (which it took 2+ hours to pick off with a pair of tweezers because you’re too hairy to use duct tape)…
In scratching said bites, you may then unknowingly transfer hookworm eggs (newly acquired from the aforementioned jaguar poop) from your fingernails into your skin at the bite sites…
You may then notice that some of your bites turn funny-looking and start to actually travel across your skin, and begin to itch so profoundly that if feels like your bones are burning, all because these particular hookworms can’t get through the human dermis…
Because the doctor is a three-hour boat ride and two-hour truck ride away, you may 1) let the one on the inside of your knee go, and 2) listen to a local Quechua man and rub a poultice consisting of spit and the crushed leaves of a plant found outside the hammock house into the one on your forearm…
You may now have 1) a raging case of impetigo behind your knee, and 2) a charred-black chemical burn on your forearm that looks worse than ever, especially because the hookworm is still there, just outside the burn area, the little fucker…
When you finally decide to make the trip to the doctor, he may not have ever seen such a raging infection before, causing him to misdiagnose it and decide to take a blood sample at the site of the infection, thus breaking the dermis and opening your blood stream to the larvae…
You may now have hookworms in your blood stream, meaning that eventually you will be coughing up larvae that mature in your lungs, swallowing them, and having them sexually reproduce in your digestive tract, thus allowing you yourself to poop out their eggs and perpetuate their horrific life cycle.
So if there is a sudden deluge in the Amazon and you’re carrying delicate, water-sensitive telemetry equipment, do not run. Walk.
And take a few doses of Albendezol.
If there is a sudden deluge in the Amazon and you’re carrying delicate, water-sensitive telemetry equipment, do not attempt to save the equipment by running back to the biological station…
You may fall, and in putting your hand out to break that fall, inadvertently place it in a pile of jaguar poop…
You may then absentmindedly scratch some of the 200+ seed tick bites you have all over your body from 3 days prior (which it took 2+ hours to pick off with a pair of tweezers because you’re too hairy to use duct tape)…
In scratching said bites, you may then unknowingly transfer hookworm eggs (newly acquired from the aforementioned jaguar poop) from your fingernails into your skin at the bite sites…
You may then notice that some of your bites turn funny-looking and start to actually travel across your skin, and begin to itch so profoundly that if feels like your bones are burning, all because these particular hookworms can’t get through the human dermis…
Because the doctor is a three-hour boat ride and two-hour truck ride away, you may 1) let the one on the inside of your knee go, and 2) listen to a local Quechua man and rub a poultice consisting of spit and the crushed leaves of a plant found outside the hammock house into the one on your forearm…
You may now have 1) a raging case of impetigo behind your knee, and 2) a charred-black chemical burn on your forearm that looks worse than ever, especially because the hookworm is still there, just outside the burn area, the little fucker…
When you finally decide to make the trip to the doctor, he may not have ever seen such a raging infection before, causing him to misdiagnose it and decide to take a blood sample at the site of the infection, thus breaking the dermis and opening your blood stream to the larvae…
You may now have hookworms in your blood stream, meaning that eventually you will be coughing up larvae that mature in your lungs, swallowing them, and having them sexually reproduce in your digestive tract, thus allowing you yourself to poop out their eggs and perpetuate their horrific life cycle.
So if there is a sudden deluge in the Amazon and you’re carrying delicate, water-sensitive telemetry equipment, do not run. Walk.
And take a few doses of Albendezol.
Things I Learned as a Field Biologist #303
One day, you may be walking down a closed-in trail to check a camera trap when you feel a slight prick on your arm through your shirt sleeve. You may look down at it and see that there’s nothing there, just a small wet spot on your arm. Nothing to worry about. Maybe it was an ant, or a thorn you brushed against. You won’t even look to see what you brushed against. There are too many plants, vines, and lianas around, anyway.
And yet… while you’re checking the camera trap, without really knowing why, your hand may keep coming to that wet spot. You will keep subconsciously touching it. And after a minute or two, you may start to notice that it feels warm to the touch…
As you’re working on replacing the camera trap batteries, you’ll start sweating. A lot. And by the time you’re finished, you can feel a bright, wide stab of burning pain where your sleeve was first wet.
Except, now that you’ve been sweating, that wet spot begins to spread.
And so does the burning.
And by the time you’re back on the trail, you are running back to camp. Because it feels like your entire arm is on fire.
When you get back to camp, you may try to wash your arm with water, but that only makes it worse. Finally, a friend may suggest washing with an oil-based soap, and the most immediate burning subsides. But no matter how much you wash it, the burning never quite goes away completely…
By the next day, your arm is swollen to twice its normal size, and several hair follicles are infected and dying. When you go the field, and begin to sweat, your arm throbs painfully and burns anew.
When you finally decide to take the 4 hour boat ride upriver and the 2 hour truck ride over land to get to the local doctor, because the painful burning and throbbing are preventing you from working, you will discover two surprising things:
1) Massive injections of antihistimine into your naked ass while bent over an examination table are always more hilarious with a friend holding your hand, and
2) It wasn’t a bite, after at all.
It was a plant.
That you will never identify.
But that you know is out there, waiting for you. Because you will mysteriously, inevitably, and painfully rub against it every frakking time you check that camera…
One day, you may be walking down a closed-in trail to check a camera trap when you feel a slight prick on your arm through your shirt sleeve. You may look down at it and see that there’s nothing there, just a small wet spot on your arm. Nothing to worry about. Maybe it was an ant, or a thorn you brushed against. You won’t even look to see what you brushed against. There are too many plants, vines, and lianas around, anyway.
And yet… while you’re checking the camera trap, without really knowing why, your hand may keep coming to that wet spot. You will keep subconsciously touching it. And after a minute or two, you may start to notice that it feels warm to the touch…
As you’re working on replacing the camera trap batteries, you’ll start sweating. A lot. And by the time you’re finished, you can feel a bright, wide stab of burning pain where your sleeve was first wet.
Except, now that you’ve been sweating, that wet spot begins to spread.
And so does the burning.
And by the time you’re back on the trail, you are running back to camp. Because it feels like your entire arm is on fire.
When you get back to camp, you may try to wash your arm with water, but that only makes it worse. Finally, a friend may suggest washing with an oil-based soap, and the most immediate burning subsides. But no matter how much you wash it, the burning never quite goes away completely…
By the next day, your arm is swollen to twice its normal size, and several hair follicles are infected and dying. When you go the field, and begin to sweat, your arm throbs painfully and burns anew.
When you finally decide to take the 4 hour boat ride upriver and the 2 hour truck ride over land to get to the local doctor, because the painful burning and throbbing are preventing you from working, you will discover two surprising things:
1) Massive injections of antihistimine into your naked ass while bent over an examination table are always more hilarious with a friend holding your hand, and
2) It wasn’t a bite, after at all.
It was a plant.
That you will never identify.
But that you know is out there, waiting for you. Because you will mysteriously, inevitably, and painfully rub against it every frakking time you check that camera…
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