The Weekly Recap
Hello and welcome back to the weekly recap!
The week started off with a trip report by William Henri Lewis from the North American East Coast. From Quebec to South Carolina, it collects 24 mammal species seen over 8 trips such as Beluga, Appalachian Cottontail and New England Cottontail.
Next are two reports from Ecuador. The first was an Enigmatic Wildlife Tour led by Zac Babbit with Tropical Birding. It’s an amazing report with 40 species and highlights like Amazon Pink River Dolphin, Spectacled Bear and Golden-mantled Tamarin.
The other was a short post from Jan Kelchtermans about the incredible sightings of Spectacled Bears and a Mountain Tapir he had in Ecuador recently. There are gorgeous photos of the bears in various poses and even one of a cub being groomed (certainly Aunt Lucy grooming Paddington, for those in the know).
Next is my dad’s trip to Guatemala led by the legendary José Gabriel Martinez-Fonseca. As always seems to be happening to him these days they found many undescribed species, including a montane Howler Monkey and a new species of water mouse. Seriously, this has been happening so often that he’s started complaining to me about not being able to add them to his life list yet… What a hard life it is to be a mammalwatcher.
And the last is a report by Zac Babbit from a trip to Hawaii with some great species like Hawaiian Monk Seal, Short-finned Pilot Whale, Hawaiian Hoary Bat and my personal favourite, Rough-toothed Dolphins. He also saw some cool non-mammal species (don’t stop reading) including the Oceanic White-tip Shark!
The most exciting night of the year has been and gone. Whilst the red carpet was being unrolled for Hollywood’s finest actors, the birdwatchers were being steamrolled for mammalwatching.com’s finest NUTTERs: the winners have been announced! What these awards lack in glitz and glamour, they make up for in bat poo and self-deprecating jokes, the two hallmarks of a true mammalwatcher. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees and thank you to everyone who voted 🙂
The Mammal Diversity Database has launched a t-shirt fundraiser! The mammal tree of life design is pretty cool, and at risk of contradicting myself, looks like something Sheldon Cooper would wear. Although perhaps Sheldon is the epitome of coolness to mammalwatchers? He certainly was when he was spotted in a shirt featuring Fiona Reid’s bat artwork.
Nick Peeters will be visiting Peru this summer and would like some mammalwatching tips – not only for specific locations, but mainly on safety and local customs. Jeroen Verhoeff is asking for advice for Poloniny NP in Slovakia and Bieszczady NP in Poland where he will mainly be doing wildlife filming on foot. And Rebecca Taylor would love to join a small group to photograph Spirit Bear cubs in the Great Bear Rain Forest (Canada), so leave a comment if you know of anyone going. I had never heard of Spirit Bears until now but highly recommend looking up a photo. Unless, like me, you suffer from cuteness aggression and value the integrity of your laptop.
Finally, Nicolas Rakotopare has helped my dad make a really great video about his, Carlos Bocos and others’ already legendary Klalik rediscovery in West Papua. If you haven’t watched it yet, and especially if you haven’t heard about this story, then you should definitely check it out. It is so good I don’t even mind that my reel-making skills have now been made redundant, nor that my dad won’t stop bragging about how it already has 20k views… It’s getting harder and harder for me to explain that this does not make him an influencer.
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Thanks for reading:)
Katy
Cover photo: Toltec Fruit-eating Bat – Emma Busk
P.S: I have recently found out that mammalwatching as a hobby was mentioned in an anthropology class called “People and Nature” at my university (Durham uni). In my dad’s words, this makes it “officially academically certified”. Now, as much as this has shown me why sometimes burning books is a great idea, it is very strange and exciting – especially as apparently one of the students brought up this website! So if you are a student at Durham and happen to be reading this, please make yourself known… Not that I have any interest in befriending a mammalwatcher of course. It is merely so I know which spaces to avoid. 🙂
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