This is so morbid

Current location: Heredia, Costa Rica

“Wow, this is so morbid” I think to myself and giggle as I read through the specifics of my project plan. Now that my first draft of the project has been approved it is time to figure out exactly how, in detail, to make this project count for something. I have always found it funny how as a scientist you are expected to describe simple things in pretty words, but doing so makes some things just sound so gruesome and heartless. In other words I am trying to explain in text that I am going to dig up a nest, take the eggs most likely to be alive, cut out the baby crocodile, take its organs and put them in little plastic tubes and then walk back to my lab with my samples. But if I am out in the wild risking my life for some silly eggs (mom, I won’t I promise) it seems so wasteful to just throw away everything but a small piece of tissue. But what do you do with pieces of a cracked egg, and where do you put it? The best idea I’ve had so far is a zip-lock bag…but really? Not only am I killing this baby croc, but I also put the rest of in a zip-lock to go in a freezer? Morbid. That’s what it is.

Here is a portion of what I have come up with so far:

“I will from each nest sample five eggs, of which the fetuses will be removed, measured and photographed for later identification of their developmental stages…On site the fetuses will be dissected and the liver, and the gonads will be placed in Eppendorf tubes containing RNAlater ® stabilizing solution and put on ice as soon as field conditions allow…Rather than discarding the remainder of the eggs they will also be put on ice in individual zip-lock bags”

#mfs #costarica #uppsalauniversity #crocodileegg #eckardtadventures