I talked to Aaron today about his mammal trapping trip to northern Nevada, southeast Oregon, and southwest Idaho. He went with his girlfriend who is working on her PhD in biology. She is doing genetic work on kangaroo rats to determine the evolutionary relationships between different groups of kangaroo rats. To do this, she traps the animals live and then takes a tissue sample. For small mammals the most humane way to take a sample is to take a small piece of the ear back to the lab. The tissue is placed in a tiny vial in alcohol and then frozen in liquid nitrogen for the trip back to the lab.

Well, anyway, on this trip they caught more animals than expected. So they ended up transporting tissue samples in his contact lens case. Cool, huh. The things guys do for hot chicks…