BET YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THESE BEFORE!!

Part of the fun of travel are new adventures and finding things you've never seen before. Being in the Yucatán allows for lots of those. Here are two examples.

Here's the first.  What are those four white things below?  I had never seen them before.   They are future animals. Make a guess? (That's my pen there to give you an idea of how small they are.)

 

These are the eggs of the Common House Gecko of the Yucatán.  Their gestation period is 60 to 120 days, far longer than I had guessed.  Last year I had a bad time sleeping due to what I had thought were crickets.  I was temporarily sleeping in my anti-gravity chair in the kitchen at night because of my recovering hip.  The sound was really loud and shocking...over and over again with pauses in between. 

Krrrk krrrk krrrk krrrk krrrk krrrk!

 

Now I learned it is the male mating call and the owners of the house where we were staying decided to totally eradicate them after they arrived.  We haven't had any problems this year with the noise although I have found 2 in the bathroom. I don't know if the following is true about the Common House Gecko but this is true for some geckos:   Sex is determined by temperature. This means that you can determine the sex of hatchlings by incubating at a specific temperature. Incubating at 85 degrees Fahrenheit will give a good balance of male to female hatchlings. Incubating at around 82 degrees Fahrenheit will give you mostly females and upping the incubation temperature to 88 degrees Fahrenheit will give you mostly males. It is thought that the temperature determined sex is only within the first 21 days of incubation, after this period of time the sex of the hatchling is locked in.

 

Hm...I wonder if that could ever apply to humans?

 

Common House Gecko of the Yucatán

Ok, here's the second.

 

 

 

 

Well, you probably guessed this one.  It's the head and neck of a chicken I bought.  I found it totally amazing in  how did they EVER skin the HEAD so well.  I have never tried to do this and totally appreciate their ability to extract the windpipe, etc, so neatly.

 

Jim is leaving tomorrow for awhile to work with some other men in the neighborhood.  They will be fixing the jungle dirt road, holes, rocks, etc. a few kilometers away from us.  Many have already repaired the road near their own property.  Also, the rains have lessened and the roads are becoming more passable again.

 

We planted 6 small Royal Palms on our property last week, saw the Super Bowl with friends in Mahahual bar and restaurant El Padrino.  I especially enjoyed Renée Fleming, the fine soprano who sang the National Anthem, and also Bruno Mars.  Manning just seemed to be always studying his plays with the papers in hand. Way to go SEAHAWKS !!!!!