Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Fifty Eight!  I hope all of you remain safe and healthy out there.  This show is a couple weeks late, thanks to some software issues and me jumping in the car and heading for Georgia and Florida for a week.  Thanks for your patience, and the good news is that I recorded another show while down in the southeast, which I will add to the queue of pending episodes.

Now before we get to this week’s episode, I want to thank the patrons of the show, including Dave Weber, our newest member who made a one-time contribution via PayPal.  Thanks Dave, and thank you for all of your kind comments, much appreciated.  I also want to thank JJ Apodaca for contributing via Patreon, thanks JJ and folks we will be hearing more from JJ soon, hint hint. And last but not least, a big shout out to Kevin, Ryan, and Hayley Urbanek for their one-time donation, and it was good to see you guys this past week.  The Urbaneks are a herping family and they get after it! And thank you as always to all of the people who support the show and help it roll forward.  To others in the listening audience, if you like the show, please consider supporting it via the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to somuchpingle@gmail.com).

For this week’s episode we return once again to the Origin Stories format, and talk with two remarkable people – Christoph Meyer, and Susan Myers.  I talked with both of them in Peru, Christoph one day and Susan the next, so I have them in that order to maintain the continuity of some subjects we covered.  Just to paint the scene a little bit – we’re at the Santa Cruz field station, in a small cleared area in the rainforest, and which is situated on the edge of a small lagoon.  There are six huts, which we call tambos, scattered along the edge of the lagoon, and all of them have shaded back decks facing the water.  Our guests can sit on their decks and watch birds and caiman and occasionally an arapaima will break the surface of the lagoon.  The decks are a perfect spot for me to record interviews, especially on hot afternoons after lunch when there’s no pressing business at hand.

Thank you Christoph and Susan for talking with me out on the deck!  Folks, be sure to check out Christoph’s Facebook page for Wildlife Tours Peru. And you may consider a birding tour with Susan through Wings Birding Tours, and I will be watching and waiting for the printing of her latest writing project, The Bird Name Book!

Thanks for listening, everyone!  And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is somuchpingle@gmail.com, and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions, herp name origins, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers! Mike