Shared Accommodation

 Living at Jalova, you soon become accustomed to sharing your accommodation with a variety of wildlife. All of the dorms play host to a number of bats as well as Iguanas, Whiptail lizards and Geckos. Fat Marine Toads are often lurking in the showers or the darker corners of the kitchen. More exciting are the occasional visits we receive from snakes such as the baby Boa Constrictor that turned up in one of the dorms just a couple of weeks ago, and had to be relocated to the nearby forest.

 Opossum in the Staff House

Of late one of our most prolific species on base has been the Common Brown Four-eyed Opossum. There has been one individual making regular appearances around the place for some time now, often spotted in the kitchen scrounging any food it could get its paws on. She has had a habit of building nests in various locations around base and some time ago was spotted carrying three tiny babies.

 Northern Raccoon on Base

Well the babies are now somewhat larger, although still not fully-grown. They are now scavenging independently, as evidenced by a sighting of one dragging away a banana it had managed to steal from our kitchen! It seems the whole family has decided that the Jalova base is the perfect place for them to set up home. Not only that, it would seem that word is spreading and maybe their friends are moving in too! Two other opossum species have been sighted on base, the Common Opossum and the Central American Wooly Opossum in addition to several recent sightings that suggest we may now also have a resident Raccoon!

-Leo, Field Staff

Shared Accommodation