Snake-eating crabs, amazing sunsets and torch-lit expeditions into the rainforest all helped to turn a countryside officer's visit to Tobago into a trip of a lifetime.

Yovone Banks, countryside education officer for Colchester Council took part in the trip after winning an Earthwatch Millennium Fellowship to study the Manicou crab.

During her two week stay Yovone joined researchers collecting, handling and measuring the crabs as well as mapping and radio tracking them.

The group of 12 spent the daytime at a river cutting through a steep gorge in the rainforest with temperatures reaching the 90s.

In the evenings they took part in torch-lit searches of the rainforest in a bid to catch the large adult crabs.

The team saw a large crab eating a smaller one and this uncovered questions about how a cannibalistic population could survive if it was eating its young.

Yovone said although snake-eating crabs do not have a direct link with working in Colchester's countryside many of the ecological concepts involved in studying them did.

She said: "Over the two weeks we used some standard ecological field techniques to look at one aspect of the habitat."

Now Yovone will be giving talks to schools and conservation groups about her experiences.

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