Meeting Anwer

Something that defined this trip for me (and I think, in general, is a notion that many can relate to) was the joy of meeting new people. Everyone we met was so kind-hearted, thoughtful, and had unique and interesting aspirations for life.

Anwer was one of those people; he had traveled down to IRA (actually, to a school just outside of IRA's premises) and we got to spend some time with him on several occasions, chatting about his work and exploring the IRA grounds, looking for more lizards.

Today, we had a brief lunch while Maria, Doug, and him all talked about Lizard Camp for this upcoming Summer. 'Lizard Camp' is a colloquial term for a week-ish long field camp to help develop field ecology skills in for students. They wanted to get one planned for the Summertime while they're here in Tunisia.

After Anwer left, it was a relatively chill day - we went back out to find some IRA lizards and ended with a nice walk, workout, and meal.

Something that I learned while in Tunisia were the different identifiers for these specific genus or species (or sub-species). Biologists will often document things like the specific number of scales in a particular spot, the number of fringes on a toe, or even the length of those fringes.

The macro lens did wonders for getting nice shots of the lizard identifers.

The birds of Tunisia were just as beautiful as the lizards, and often presented themselves in magnificant ways. While this bird was just chillin' on a tree, it was one of countless varieties that we saw during my time there.

Then is was wind-down time for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow would be an early-rise with an adventure to find Uromastyx. Time will tell if our effort bear fruit.