PLT Welcomes Olga, our new Museum Curator

Hello, everybody! My name is Olga. And I’m the new museum curator here at PLT. I’ve come to Paraguay to avoid the long snowy winter of Russia, my homeland, and to see with my own eyes all the “exotic” animals I’ve read so much about. Well, it’s definitely warm here! And every day brings new species to discover. Sometimes directly to your room, as was the case yesterday with a giant tarantula spider making a tour around my suitcase, or a cute tree frog lost in a bathroom. As a curator I mostly work with maintenance of the museum collections and the addition of new specimens. The main project right now is the species inventory of two families of moths and some other insects. So far PLT has re-discovered a moth believed to be extinct and has found several species and even a whole genus not previously known to be present in Paraguay. This knowledge not only helps to better understand the Paraguayan nature, it also shows the high level of biodiversity at Laguna Blanca, and thus further supports the argument that this land needs to be protected. The PLT museum is open for visitors. To make it more educational and fun the team of PLT came up with some renovations and new exhibitions. One of the changes is a “mini-zoo”; a shelf with terrariums to show tourists and local children creatures that are usually hard to see due to their nocturnal lifestyle or small size. The terrariums are made and what’s left is to decorate them and find inhabitants: lizards, frogs and invertebrates. We plan to keep the animals only for a short amount of time and release them back into nature on a regular rotation. When it’s not too hot I like to go for a walk on one of tourist trails. I won’t call myself a birder, but it is nice to look for them. I leave you with birds of Laguna Blanca.