By Grace Horne, of Colby College
Fieldwork is mostly an amalgam of unfortunate events. Because of all the dangerous wildlife, we have to drive around in trucks to complete transects and get anywhere (especially at night). The trucks sometimes have issues that arise from the difficult terrain we have to cross on the daily. We drive through deep mud and sand; all the while the windows are down to provide some reprieve from the blaring heat. Sometimes tree branches make their way into the vehicle and add a new obstacle to data collecting: branch slalom. But mostly we drive slowly and avoid any dangerous situations.
So far, we have only done practice transects. The procedure goes as follows: get in the car at 0800 hours, drive to the transect, set the GPS odometer, and drive. Whenever we come across any herbivore, we measure the coordinates, bearing, distance from the transect, species, age, and sex. For elephants, which are overabundant in the Okavango Delta, we collect data on demographics and behavior. This is sometimes very difficult when there are groups of 100+ zebra, elephants, wildebeest, etc.
We’ve learned about some pretty cool insects while we’ve been here. Last night, we sat beside the campfire and fed grass to harvester termites. The termites took the pieces of grass back to their colony, sometimes stealing from each other. Every once in a while, we saw the solider exit the hole in the ground. The distinguishing characteristic of the soldier termite is his head size. It is nearly double the size of the others.
Another interesting insect (coincidentally also a termite), is the fungus termite. They create massive above and below ground colonies. Their structures are made mostly from faculae and are waterproof. In fact, many islands in the Okavango Delta arise from abandoned termite mounds. The termites have a symbiotic relationship with a fungus. This is where their common name comes from. The fungus digests the materials the termites bring to it and in turn creates food for the termites. When it is time to create a new nest in a different location, one termite will carry some of the fungus in its foregut to start anew.
The title of this blog post, Mamba Holiday Inn, is a reference to the termite mounds. Once the occupants die, other organisms are welcome to take over the structure. It is easy to tell when this happens because there will be large holes in the nest. One of the instructors called this a ‘mamba hotel’ because the black mamba—an extremely poisonous snake—likes to take up residence in these nests. We must be sure to avoid these ‘hotels,’ because once you check in, there’s no checking out.
