A group of 18 students from the Lawrence Academy in Groton Mass. and three staff members, arrived with a wonderful list of projects that they were intending to carry out as part of their course work. However much the adults grizzled the kids loved it. One meter of rain in a week is a wonder to behold - all roads were blocked and our swimming hole was a raging torrent. Luckily the weather cleared three days before they left, and some projects were done, as well as a visit to the Great arrier Reef. Ralph Manzanell , sucking mosquitoes from a Boyd's Forest Dragon.
Mosquitoes transmit filarial worms to the dragons, and in fact to probably all lizards.
Ralph was researching the incidence of these worms in agamid lizards in tropical Australia. These little mega-bats are major pollinators of a wide range of rainforest flowers. After the cyclone, we had a mass flowering of 'bumpy satin ash' - Syzygium spp ., which are pollinated by blossom bats. Gianluca was given the interesting task of attempting to assess the impact of a relatively unpleasant commensal ant of the Syzygium , Iridomyrmex gilbertii on the pollination success of the satin ash. Here he is removing a blossom bat from a mist net.