map of Guam Introducing Mystery Class #5 Mangilao, Guam (13.250 N, 144.450 E) Greetings! My name is Pam Eastlick, and I run the Planetarium at the University of Guam on the island of Guam. Guam is a small island about 30 miles long and 8 to 15 miles wide. We are a Unites States territory and all Guam citizens are US citizens. I've lived on Guam for over twenty years. Guam is located at 13 degrees North in the western Pacific Ocean. We are approximately 1500 miles from the nearest large landmass in any direction and I run the most isolated Planetarium in the world. It's the only Planetarium in over two million square miles of ocean. I see about 13,000 people every year; about 9,000 of them are schoolchildren (picture 3) who come to the Planetarium for field trips. Greetings from Guam! The UOG Science building (The Planetarium is on the right end.) Kids in the UOG Planetarium getting ready to enjoy a show Guam is a beautiful tropical island (picture 4) with lots of jungle and lush green savanna (picture 5) and we have beautiful sunsets (picture 6) and quiet country lanes (picture 7). The island is surrounded by fringing coral reefs (picture 8) that contain many beautiful fish. We also have urban areas and one of the largest McDonald's restaurants in the world. The north of the island has the largest population and there are about 130,000 people who live on Guam. Approximately one-third of the population are Chamorus, the descendants of the people who originally sailed to Guam about 4,000 years ago in outrigger canoes. The rest of the population is a mixture of Filipinos, people from the other islands in Micronesia and emigrants like me from the mainland US. A stormy day over Guam. 5-Hills in the savanna 6-Sunset on the beach 8--Asan Blues. The line below the horizon where the water turns from dark to light is the edge of the fringing reef. The rock is called Camel Rock. 7-Village road     Guam has many beautiful and bizarre flowers like this Hibiscus (picture 9) or this Barringtonia flower (picture 10). The Chamorus call this plant 'puting' (poo-ting) and the large box-shaped fruits contain a substance that can be used to stun fish. We also have strangler figs on Guam. They are called nunu (new-new) trees. The one in this picture is growing over an old building (picture 11), but they can also become very large house-sized trees that have many prop roots. You can wander around inside the roots but very few people here do because they are said to be the home of the taotaomonas, the spirits of the Chamoru ancestors. 9--A lovely red Hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) 10--A puting flower (Barringtonia asiatica) 11--A nunu tree (home to taotaomonas?) (Ficus prolixa) There aren't many animals on Guam because there's no easy way for them to get here. One of the animals that was brought here when Guam was a Spanish colony was the Asian water buffalo or carabao (picture 12). An animal who got here by itself is the large monitor lizard. The Chamoru name for this lizard is halitai (hah-lee-tie) (picture 13). They are closely related to Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, and our halitais can get quite large. 12-- A carabao keeping cool. Carabaos are also called water buffalo, and they can't sweat so they spend a lot of time in the water to keep cool. 13--A hilitai (monitor lizard) keeping warm. Monitor lizards are cold-blooded reptiles and they must sun themselves in the morning to warm up. 14--An ayuyu (coconut crab) climbing up a nunu tree. Those are prop roots around him (of course, it could be a her!). Another animal that gets quite large here is the coconut crab or ayuyu (pronounced ah-joo-joo) (picture 14). Some ayuyu have been caught that were up to three feet across, but unfortunately they are good to eat and they rarely get that big here anymore. The one in this picture is about 5 inches long. 15--My new house in Yona. I'm very proud of it! I just built a new house here and this is a picture of it (picture 15). I have certainly enjoyed being Mystery Guest #5 and I hope all of you will visit Guam some day. If you can't come to visit right away, please visit the Planetarium web site All the pictures here were taken by Mr. Mariano Mesngon and you can meet him at the website as well. Guam has some of the most awesome skies in the world, especially in April and May when you can see eight of the ten brightest stars all at the same time. The website is updated every month and you can learn all about the skies of Guam. Visit soon! Copyright 2002 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form