Cueva Escalante, Dominican Republic

Don McFarlane buried in cave dirt as a student from Puerto Rico records the finds. Sifting for fossil bones in Cueva Escalante was a long process.

This cave, in the Dominican Republic, was not a long or very interesting cave, but we found it and mapped it.  Yet it had a great deposit of small bones under what was likely an owl roost near the entrance.  A large number of bones were found, relating to many species, and we spent a total of 8 hours working on this.  Yes, this was fully permitted work and in conjunction with the Museo del Hombre Dominicano. 

I spent a lot of time sifting for bones, and for my efforts I got Histoplasmosis, a lung fungus.  Fever of 104, hallucinations, and breath that smelled like bread mold.  I had it bad, but others get it worse.  I was mostly clear of it after a coupe weeks, while others have complications for many months.

Seems that has given me immunity to further bouts of Histo, as in the years following I have been in a lot of bat caves with no Histo infections.  Kinda good, since that is a big part of what I do.