Blog blog blog: Finally some cool stuff

One of the things I was looking forward to while living in a tropical country was the fact that lizards could be scurrying all over the walls everywhere I went. Unfortunately, Quito's more temperate climate is too cold to support this kind of lizard activity.

I know, I know, everyone must be thinking: "But Jon! You like turtles! Not LIZUrDS!!11! Why do you want to see lizerds?! Trtuels are so much cooler."

Podocnemis unifilus.
I've always read about these guys but never got to see them in person.

Yeah, turtles are really cool, but for whatever reasons turtles aren't as diverse in the tropics. Ecuador has only 31 species of turtles. This is including sea turtles which are pretty much global and the Galapagos turtles which are the opposite. These don't count in my biased opinion. Freshwater turtles are where it's at. That's a story for another blog entry. Anyway, there are only 10 species at Tiputini. A measly 10. Believe it or not, the United States is the most turtle rich country in the world!

But anyways, I am excited to see lizards because there were no lizards to catch in New York, but there are tons of lizards (and frogs) in Ecuador and I plan on catching them all. More on that later.

Here are pictures from a small zoo in a large park in the middle of Quito. It's called the Vivarium. Unfortunately, they only had 2 lizards, one of which I could not find. I don't think it was in there. There were mostly snakes (which I am completely ignorant about), some frogs (which I have no good pictures of), and turtles!