ooh, shiny!

Today we started our crash course in studying shiny metallic stingless bees. (Euglossine bees) We set out six different chemicals on trees in three different habitats and recorded the buzzing visitors. One of the chemicals, I might add, is skatol...an organic compound from feces...I'll have that scent burnt into my memory forever. We caught almost thirty specimens, killed them, and pinned them for species identification. As you can imagine, there is high diversity here and most of it is not documented because the building that held all the bug specimens here burned down several years ago. So we are using our collection as a startup for a new bug collection here (it will include the bright blue metallic bee we caught hovering around my shoe). Tomorrow we will be trying out a new data collection method that we developed tonight to get a better idea of what chemicals these bees like.
I'd also like to add that I saw a different species of tropical frog on a night walk today, got the crap scared out of me by a foot-long lizard while I was planting chemicals, and saw a pair of toucans and a cuatemundi. Oh, and now there is a 2 inch spider on the wall above my pillow. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...

This morning is so clear and beautiful, it's easy to forget why they call this a "wet forest". Hardly a cloud in the sky, and the parakeets were going nuts outside our window at 5:30 AM, as per usual. They sound a little like crows that early in the morning. We got to the station for breakfast early, and sat outside watching all the tropical birds flit around some banana chunks some one had strewn on the deck. The variety and color of them is astounding, and Kara could barely keep up with identifying them from her handy-dandy guide.

For breakfast: rice and beans as a main dish (as you could have guessed) and bug talk

In five minutes, we depart to start attracting and collecting bees. Don't worry, they're stingless! I would punch every bee in the face...

ps

Susi, we ate fried mini-bananas for breakfast at Hotel la Amistad in San Jose. They were actually pretty good. Bananas are abundant here, although they are not native to Costa Rica.
hi RHS!

froggies!

ok, so on the list of cool things we saw today: morpho butterflies, a rare sicklebill humming bird, some lizards, a frog, leaf cutter ants, crazy birds, and thousands of species of plants. We swung from lianas, climbed strangler figs, and got rained on in a tropical premontane wet forest. We eat rice and beans with every meal. It's breathtaking here. Tomorrow we will start studying euglossine bees (stingless bees with metallic colors).

Purple bananas, and a busy day.

Growing up side down, and entirely the wrong color, this banana species fr om Asia is a noxious weed... and yet, I want to eat one so badly...

So today we took a hike through the primary and secondary forest growth of the land owned by *LAS CRUSES. We climbed in a hollow strangler fig. We swung from trees and got drenched by an unseasonable thunder storm.

I made an ant video, please enjoy!

Video Notes to Home

Good morning misty world!

Clouds so thick, you can taste them...