3 days, 3 people, 1 very successful trip to Indiana. Only a couple days after the school year had finally ended, three members of Team Snake (Kennymac Durante, Dr. Ellen Haynes, and Seth LaGrange) hit the ground running in order to survey the prevalence of Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola (Snake fungal disease) in wild snake populations in [...]
The Wildlife Epidemiology Lab (WEL) houses a variety of reptile colonies for both research and teaching purposes including box turtles, alligator snapping turtles, prairie rattlesnakes, and a variety of other venomous and non-venomous snakes. One of the newest additions is the colony of ten bearded dragons, identified as A-J, who became members of the lab [...]
Hello from Team Snake!! Welcome to Katie and Kennymac's summer journey in the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab! Katie is a second year veterinary student and is interested in public health, and Kennymac is a first year veterinary student interested in zoological medicine. This summer, we are both working on projects related to Ophidiomyces, a snake fungal [...]
Blog 1: “The Big Pack” Welcome to the Summer 2019 Blanding’s Blog! Our names are Sam and Kirsten and we are veterinary students at the University of Illinois. We also are student researchers in the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab here at U of I. ( Kirsten- Second Year Student) (Sam - First [...]
I CANNOT BELIEVE THE SUMMER IS OVER!! It flew by too fast. Words cannot express how much I have enjoyed my time in Oak Ridge, TN. The information I have learned from the students, John Byrd, and about John Byrd and I giving a presentation to a summer camp! snakes have exceeded my [...]
AKA The Best Week of the Summer When we thought spending our summer outside every day in the field finding turtles couldn’t get any better, it did. We participated in the annual turtle games -- BBV (Blanding’s Bowl V). The games have been occurring for five years and it is one week out of the [...]
Lauren Got Stuck in the Rain I wouldn’t say got stuck as much as I would say willingly chose to get out of the vehicle while it was raining, with a radio antennae in hand, to track turtles. Rain or shine, during nesting season it is important to know where our turtle friends are because [...]
Our next field week took us to Stephen A. Forbes State Park in Illinois for a week of stumbling upon turtles and camping under the stars! With a forecast of thunderstorms for the duration of the week we were prepared for an exciting few days. We left school at 5AM with a caravan of students and [...]
Maurer Nested First The first turtle nested! She made a run for it, dug a hole and layed her eggs like a pro. She is a newly tracked turtle this year so we weren’t sure when or where to expect her to nest but she did so and it was all exciting! Until… the next [...]
This week we had the opportunity to work with some real monsters: Alligator Snapping Turtles (AST’s)!! As part of a reintroduction project headed by our biologist lab mate, Ethan, we were able to help take health samples from turtles that have been raised and reintroduced to the wild. Tracking, diving for, and wrangling these [...]
