Monday, June 19, 2006
Back to Work
6/12/2006
Today I started working on the samples we brought back from the field. I began with the most fun of them - the fecal floatations! I did floats on all of the NAP and Mulchatna fecal samples that we brought back.
I found all sorts of interesting things. Below is a picture of an embryonated strongylid egg from one of the NAP caribou (most likely Ostertagia). The little worm was squirming around in the egg just waiting to hatch out. I think it's pretty exciting.
Today I started working on the samples we brought back from the field. I began with the most fun of them - the fecal floatations! I did floats on all of the NAP and Mulchatna fecal samples that we brought back.
I found all sorts of interesting things. Below is a picture of an embryonated strongylid egg from one of the NAP caribou (most likely Ostertagia). The little worm was squirming around in the egg just waiting to hatch out. I think it's pretty exciting.
I also found Tricurid-looking eggs, Ostertagia eggs, Fasciola-looking eggs, a few Ascarid eggs, and some Coccidia. There were also some hatched out strongyle larvae in one sample (also probably Ostertagia). Every sample but one had something in it.
The ones that look like Fasciola (liver fluke) were very interesting to me. I didn't realize that there were liver flukes in Alaska. I asked Kimberlee about it, and she said that other people have seen eggs in the feces, but nobody has found actual flukes in livers yet. Weird.
I guess that's all I did today. It's not as exciting as being out on the tundra, but it's very important, and this is where all of the data starts to come together and we can start learning things about the NAP caribou.
