1. You could be the nifty REI-type biologist with various field gear made with the newest and fanciest wizz-bang technology including new GPS units with colored screens and probably some form of blue-tooth, SPF and bug-repellent infused clothing, fancy tents, camp chairs that make have foot-rests, thermo-imaging technology, solar panels and of course a solar powered espresso maker. I think anyone who uses those fancy tree-canopy cranes for their research would automatically be in this group.
2. There are the old school biologists with field gear resembling a turn of the century expedition to deepest Africa. These biologists can be recognized by pre 1980 technology in well kept containers, binoculars and a classic field notebook in tow, and inevitably a coffee-peculator that they know exactly how to use, old well-worn coolers from the 1960s or 1970s. Perhaps we could consider these guys 'steam punk' biologists.
I think Jane Goodall (above) would fit into this category.
3. 'Old school' biologists can be easily confused with a similar type that I would call the Woodie-Guthrie /cowboy biologists. These are easily distinguished by (yes ok obvious) a cowboy hat or well worn cap but may also be noted by well worn boots, flannel s
hirts, field work conducted comfortably while wearing some old blue-jeans, a compass and topo map, and of course a green Stanley thermos. The coffee in a Woodie-Guthrie biologist's thermos incidentally is made one of two ways: the peculator method (above) or cowboy style by throwing some grounds into boiling coffee and then adding cold water prior to drinking to make the grounds drop to the bottom *cool trick right? Indeed, these last two kinds of biologists are full of cool tricks like how to cook a meal in a tin can using the sun, or how to noose a lizard with dental-floss and a stick. Ok and yes... many of my ways of defining these groups are their modes of coffee preparation and for that I apologize but it does hold true to a decent extent.
hirts, field work conducted comfortably while wearing some old blue-jeans, a compass and topo map, and of course a green Stanley thermos. The coffee in a Woodie-Guthrie biologist's thermos incidentally is made one of two ways: the peculator method (above) or cowboy style by throwing some grounds into boiling coffee and then adding cold water prior to drinking to make the grounds drop to the bottom *cool trick right? Indeed, these last two kinds of biologists are full of cool tricks like how to cook a meal in a tin can using the sun, or how to noose a lizard with dental-floss and a stick. Ok and yes... many of my ways of defining these groups are their modes of coffee preparation and for that I apologize but it does hold true to a decent extent. 4. But there remains a final group and a group to which I admit I belong and I call this the duct-tape biologist. These are the biologists that have rigged nearly the entirely of their gea
r from odds and ends. They could make you a centrifuge from a drill or tube and piece of string. Their tents do not sit on pre-made foot prints but cut pieces of tarps. They do their field work sitting on the ground or on a nice rock or log. A decent portion of their gear is second-hand, hand-made or corner-store purchased and they make their coffee by pouring hot water through a canvass sock (trust me a topic that I will expand on at another time). Their field attire is hodge podge and can cover the range of looks above but only mixed-and matched leading to an overall-effect of Pippi Longstockings or McGyver. Come to think of it McGyver, which I have recently learned is a Spanish verb, would have made an excellent field-biologist.
r from odds and ends. They could make you a centrifuge from a drill or tube and piece of string. Their tents do not sit on pre-made foot prints but cut pieces of tarps. They do their field work sitting on the ground or on a nice rock or log. A decent portion of their gear is second-hand, hand-made or corner-store purchased and they make their coffee by pouring hot water through a canvass sock (trust me a topic that I will expand on at another time). Their field attire is hodge podge and can cover the range of looks above but only mixed-and matched leading to an overall-effect of Pippi Longstockings or McGyver. Come to think of it McGyver, which I have recently learned is a Spanish verb, would have made an excellent field-biologist.So why are there these differences in types of biologists? For one it depends on what the person is studying or doing. If you are studying flight or biomechanics of animals you are likely an REI biologist because frankly you cannot Jerry-rig a high-speed video camera. If you do something considered 'classic biology' like behavioral observations of animals you may or may not find yourself more like the 2nd type of biologist in the field with just your eyes, binoculars and a notebook. If your work involves tracking (radio tracking etc.) animals you may be more of a Woodie-Guthrie type transversing the landscape as hobo-esque scientist.
Indeed in light of 'what you do dictates which of these types you may be categorized as' I have found that there are some things that you simply cannot buy... for example a bat traps in general cannot be purchased by typing 'bat trap' into an Amazon search engine. So some McGyver action must be used. I also cannot just search 'bat feces collection pans' and consequently I have become a duct-tape addict. In fact thanks to modern times I hav
e decided to embrace my dependence by purchasing various colors under the valid excuse that hot-pink or yellow duct tape is easier to track down in a dark cave than the classic silver variety. Several people have suggested Duct tape may be a good sponsor for my research and I couldn't agree more (in the photo to the left you can see my bat nets with orange duct tape and my feces collection traps that while you cannot see from the photo are also held together by duct tape).
e decided to embrace my dependence by purchasing various colors under the valid excuse that hot-pink or yellow duct tape is easier to track down in a dark cave than the classic silver variety. Several people have suggested Duct tape may be a good sponsor for my research and I couldn't agree more (in the photo to the left you can see my bat nets with orange duct tape and my feces collection traps that while you cannot see from the photo are also held together by duct tape).However there are some surprising things you cannot easily rig no-matter how much duct tape. I could not for the life of me 'make' a syringe or a pesola for that matter (a little scale for weighing things). For me the quintessential example of something unexpected that one must buy is that of little plastic bands with numbers to mark individual bats. I have found myself not only ordering fancy little plastic rings with special numbers for each bat but dependant on ordering them from a company in the United Kingdom! So I guess when you need something special it quickly becomes a narrow market. Are we really surprised that there is only one company known for making little rings with numbers to mark birds and bats? Probably not.
A Mexican Jamaican fruit bat unaware (I assume) that it is wearing a necklace a numbered bead imported from England via the United States.
So what about those field biologists that don't drink coffee? (I swear they exist!!)
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