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Cueva Escalante, Dominican Republic

1/15/2015

2 Comments

 
Picture
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.


2 Comments
Linda
1/14/2015 10:44:06 pm

So, why don't the biologists wear masks? I notice Professor Don and the student do not have them on.

Reply
Keith
1/15/2015 03:16:00 pm

We mostly suspected that we had enough immunity from prior exposure. In my case, that was not true. No others got Histo on the trip.

But yes, masks would have helped.

Reply



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