International bat conference, Merida

Well. I can't believe that I haven't posted anything since the end of July. After my last post, I went down to Merida, in the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, for the annual bat researcher conference. I presented my first scientific poster (I'll post a link to it soon), with final results of the same project I previewed in my first oral presentation last January. This one I co-presented with my buddy Gabe, who helped with the research and the poster design. The conference was a blast, despite the many missing people who were scared off by Hurricane Dean, which threatened to pass right over Merida. It turned out that we missed it completely, but the pre-storm drama certainly added to the excitement of the conference for those of us brave enough to show up. I managed to go on a couple of field trips as well, to Chichen Itza, recently named one of the seven wonders of the world, and to some cenotes. The image above is one of the faces of the dead near the ball field at Chichen. Our guide didn't know if the faces represented game winners or losers, which I guess is kind of like life; we all end up dead. This lucky one at least gets a corner view over the big pyramid. You can see more of my photos here.