Please hold: eggs maturing

Current Location: Hotel de Haan, Jacó, Costa Rica 9°36’54’’N 84°37’45’’W

The nests that we found, and the eggs, are left to mature without my presence. I need the baby crocodiles to grow bigger before I remove the eggs from the nests. A lot of people are very intrigued by my research until they realize that I will have to sacrifice baby crocodiles. And to answer the question whether I feel bad about it, of course I do. Who wouldn’t? And when I take them out of their eggshells they are probably going to be ridiculously cute and look like little dinosaurs. Luckily I will not have to hear them make little dinosaur noises, because I put them in the freezer right after collection – that way they fall asleep. I have been told that it is probably the most humane way to do it. I suppose that I could give them a lethal dose of some aesthetic, but that might interfere with my pesticide analysis later on. But since I am simply just waiting for better times (egg times) I have once again found myself in Jaco to enjoy some surfing. I am surfing three to four hours when the tide is high, and then I sit down with the pool to do some work. Right now I am trying to design some primers for my aromatase and CYP1A mRNA- analysis. Yes, technical sciency things. I must admit, I am excited to have come so far to actually feel like I understand the science behind the analysis that I am going to do. At some point I will explain exactly how I will analyze my samples, and why these analysis are relevant for understanding why the sex ratio in the crocodiles here is skewed. But that will be another night. Right now I am enjoying great company and feel like I need to get back to that. But I will give you a pic of me and a crocodile (photo: Ludvig Orsén)

P.S. Today I have met to very nice Argentinians; Pedro & Francisco (Like San Francisco). (Upon Pedro’s request)