Today, we began our trek to the Chiquibul Forest with interesting narration and several stops along the way. During the drive, our guide Leo pointed out what he referred to as a Mayan village because 85% of the residents speak one of the Mayan languages.We also passed a new Mayan structure that’s currently in the process of being constructed by a Mayan descendant.
Our first stop was “Rio on Pools,” a collection of small pools along a river. We got to swim, and the leaches were successfully avoided! When we got back on the road, we passed a ghost village. Leo said that this village thrived during the 1930s and 40s because of the forestry industry but was completely abandoned by the mid 90s.
Later in the evening after finally arriving at Las Cuevas Research Station in the Chiquibul, we gathered in the classroom to have student presentations. Scott showed me a Scarab beetle that he found! This is one of my first beetle finds (second to a firefly I saw at Crystal Paradise Ecolodge). It’s possible that this beetle was of the species Enema endymion or a close relative.
We have reached the end of our first day in Belize, and I have yet to spot any beetles (order: Coleoptera). This is likely because we haven’t spent much time outdoors yet. Much of our day was spent on a plane or in a van, so I didn’t have much time for beetle-watching.
However, as I was walking around Crystal Paradise Ecolodge this evening, I found a nest of what I believe to be wasps (as opposed to bees). Though these aren’t members of my assigned taxon, I’ll insert a photo, as we don’t have a bee and wasp expert on our trip, and I think these insects deserve some attention, too.
This nest is a pretty incredible work of architecture, and I was surprised to find it in a bush, rather than in a tree or on a building. I had originally been scanning the bushes in hopes of finding a beetle resting on a leaf, but this was a pretty cool find, too.
What an adventure. So many miles traveled, wisdom gained, and personal growth has taken place during these past two weeks. I can vividly recall everyone sitting outside KWG 100 that first morning, eagerly awaiting what was to come and the cleanest we ever were. I have learned so much since then, and in the past hours as I have struggled to figure out how to sum up everything I want to say about this experience, I have realized that it’s almost impossible to put it all into words without writing a novel or two, but I will do my best here.
We were fortunate enough to visit two of the most beautiful and biologically diverse ecosystems in the world during our time in Belize: the tropical rainforest and the coral reef. Though these two ecosystems appeared very different to me at first, a closer examination revealed that they share many similarities. From the many layers of the rainforest canopy and the abundance of leaf litter canvasing the rainforest floor to the shallow sea grass beds and the wide range of coral structures in the reef, both ecosystems contain countless diverse niches and microhabitats that have the capabilities for a myriad of organisms and species flourish.
The coral reefA glimpse up into the canopy of the Chiquibul Rainforest
Along the same lines, the complexity and depth of both of these ecosystems are things that I feel I had an idea of before but didn’t truly grasp until I was totally immersed in them for the two weeks. For example, looking carefully at what appears to be a simple leaf-covered path in the forest can reveal several termites and beetle species under a log, a variety of arachnids skittering along the surface of the leaves, and snakes hidden just under them. Similarly, studying a mound of coral colonies might show Christmas tree worms burrowed into the polyps, sea urchins wedged into the crevices, and macroalgae growing in patches.
Experiencing it all firsthand really helped me understand how the numerous things living in both of those ecosystems are interconnected. Each species contributed something crucial to the ecosystem that they inhabited, and an environmental change that impacts one species undoubtedly impacts countless others as well. Learning about my two taxa played a role in this, with the beetles being important decomposers in the rainforest and the echinoderms being important prey and predators in the reef. Also interestingly and unexpectedly (for me at least) given the structural and organismal diversity present in these ecosystems, both of these ecosystems are fairly nutrient poor yet have managed to efficiently recycle nutrients to support their inhabitants.
In addition to the obvious species differences in these ecosystems, I noticed that the behaviors of the ‘dangerous’ species in each varied. While in the rainforest I was very wary of snakes and spiders, it turned out that most creatures would avoid you and we only saw one snake and few large mammals during our trip. On the other hand, the reefs were filled with things that simply hovered about unafraid of your presence (such as the jellyfish and lionfish).
The coral snake slinking around during the night hikeAn upside-down jellyfish swimming around the mangroves
Throughout the course, I particularly enjoyed hearing from all of the guest lecturers and the constant exploration that occurred. I never felt bored, and everywhere I looked there was always something new and exciting to learn and see or someone with a unique perspective to talk to and learn from. If I had to choose a least favorite aspect of the course, it would probably be the amount of preparation that we had to do beforehand. Still, I can see how necessary and helpful all of it was.
I will no doubt remember how interlocked everything really is. Both within the ecosystems with the large trees and corals providing for the smaller species around them and outside of the ecosystems in our lives. As far removed as we might seem in our daily lives from either of those ecosystems, the things we do in our everyday lives leave a long lasting impact on the environment, as shown by the marine debris cleanup project that we did. As cliché as it sounds, this course also further reinforced the motto of hard work truly pays off. Hearing from a graduate student who spends hours sifting through photos from camera traps in the hopes of coming across a big cat snapshot about the simplicity of just remaining cheerful even when everything goes wrong is imprinted in my mind. Furthermore, I learned that working hard on your own is important, but it takes the efforts of many to manage the dynamics of conservation. Among the other lessons learned on this trip is that traipsing around in full body spandex dive skins is not actually as bad as it sounds, but putting it on is a struggle every time.
All in all, these past two weeks far exceeded my expectations. Not only did we have running water for the whole trip (well except for the time we were still in the states, ironically), but I also had countless opportunities to push past my comfort zones and see how incredible doing so could be. All of the sights and experiences were so much more beautiful than any textbook or online image could ever portray, and I am still in awe that I had the opportunity to witness it all.
Thanks for following along everyone; what an unbelizeably wonderful ride it’s been.
Hello everyone! This was an interesting day schedule wise. Though we were originally supposed to leave Las Cuevas at 7 am and head to the ATM cave, our van did not show up until around 11 am. Unfortunately, this meant that we would have to skip the cave tour, but we did get to hear a really neat talk by one of the workers at Las Cuevas and spend a little extra time being at one with the rainforest.
An agouti from the Belize zoo
Once the van finally arrived, we ended up heading to a souvenir shop, small café, and supermarket to pass some time before traveling to the Tropical Education Center where we’re staying for the night. After a quick dinner, we got to go on a Night Tour of the Belize Zoo (!!!!) where we saw and interacted with some amazing animals. We got to touch a black jaguar’s paw, watch a spotted jaguar do somersaults and climb a platform, see ocelots, margays, a puma, and feed carrots to a tapir (the national animal of Belize) among other things.
Lucky Boy, the black jaguar at the Belize Zoo
While we were roaming the zoo near the margay cage, I did spy a beetle that had landed on one of my classmates. It was a couple of centimeters long and brown, but other than that I did not get too close of a look at it because it quickly flew away so I am not sure what it was (probably a darkling beetle of some sort). Despite all of the travel adjustments that had to be made today, I would still call today a great day because of the wonderful zoo tour. After all, when else am I going to be able to touch a black jaguar’s paw and feed carrots to a tapir? 🙂
Feeding carrots to the national animal of Belize, the tapir
Hi everyone! I have some cool news to share about our camera trap results (from the camera traps that we placed our first day here at Las Cuevas)! Captured on film were a couple brown jays, a curassow, a tapir, an agouti, and an ocelot! Though we weren’t able to find a definitive answer to our question of whether there was a difference in species’ composition and richness between man-made or natural sites in the Chiquibul, the fact that we got to see these fascinating species wandering in the same places where we spend our days is amazing.
Speaking of neat species, I did get to see a couple new beetles today! During the afternoon portion of our trek, I spied a small chestnut brown beetle similar to a june bug (Phyllophaga spp). A large black/brown stag beetle (Lucanus capreolus) was also found flying around seemingly in a slightly distressed manner in the classroom tonight.
The Chiquibul Rainforest: a fascinating place full of undiscovered mysteries
Sitting here after another 13 mile hike during our last day at Las Cuevas Research Station, it’s hard to believe that our five days here are already at an end. However, I am excited for tomorrow because we are heading to another neat cave as well as to the Belize Zoo! 🙂
Happy Sunday everyone! Today’s schedule was a bit different than those of our other days here. The morning began with a short hike along the Maya trail to pick up the pitfall traps that we had set up yesterday and analyzing our data. Specifically, we examined species’ richness and abundance on the forest floor and compared those values to the canopy’s. We also investigated whether there would be greater species’ richness and abundance in the urine vials relative to the water vials in the canopy as opposed to the vials in the forest floor. Interestingly, we found that both richness and abundance were higher in the forest floor than in the canopy and that the abundance in urine was greater than in water in both locations.
A female pinching beetle (Lucanus capreolus) from one of our pitfall traps
Many beetle specimens were collected today (10 species and 18 specimens to be exact) from our pitfall traps! A few of the most interesting were a fairly large beetle of about 3.5 cm long with a shiny black body rimmed with red that I believe may be a female pinching beetle (Lucanus capreolus), a very small slightly shimmery dark brown or olive green color leaf beetle (perhaps either a Dogbane Beetle with scientific name Chrysochus auratus or a type of flea beetle), and a black darkling beetle with a segmented body (species possibly Alobates pennysylvanicus).
Some of the beetle specimens brought to me from our pitfall trap experiment
As you can see, today was a fairly light day in terms of physical activity, but I am sure we will make up for it with the night hike tonight and especially with collecting all of the camera traps tomorrow. I am excited to see what animals are in the images we’ve captured (hopefully a picture of a jaguar?!?)! Thanks for reading! 🙂
A giant spider that we found along the path during our night hike
Update: We got to hear from a Ph.D. student named Lauren tonight! She’s currently a little more than halfway through an eight month study here and is using 52 pairs of camera traps to conduct research on carnivorous forest creatures. Also, the night hike along the Maya trail was super cool! We saw tarantulas and other spiders the size of our palms, a cockroach the size of a large mouse, and a coral snake among many other species!
And I must end this post with a picture of a cool beetle from the night hike 🙂
Hi everyone! First things first, today was a great day for beetle spotting! We went on a small hike before lunch down the Monkey Tail Trail and found some great beetles. The first was a patent leather beetle (of the species Odontotaenius disjunctus) of about 3.5 cm long among the leaf litter, the second was a small chestnut brown colored scarab beetle (identified by its segmented antennae and fairly round body among other things) of the family Scarabaeidae. We also found a 3 cm long grub of a beetle on a log on the side of the Monkey Tail Trail and an empty black elytra abandoned in the middle of the trail. The elytra was a little difficult to identify, but it was about 3.5 cm long, had one flat edge and gently curved to the middle. Perhaps it could have come from something similar to a flower beetle or another firefly (family Lampyridae).
A scarab beetle, family Scarabaeidae
On our second trek along the Maya trail we also found a black beetle with reddish spots on its elytra about 1 cm that could possibly be of the genus Mycetina. Last, but definitely not least, I just identified another black ground beetle that appeared to be of the same species as yesterday’s (family Carabidae) crawling along the floor below my chair.
A look back at the cave entrance before we ventured further into the twilight and dark zones
Other exciting things we did today was explore the Las Cuevas Cave. We went down into the different zones of the cave (entrance zone, twilight zone, and dark zone) and explored the creatures and geological structures of the cave. Some interesting things we observed there were a peccary skeleton, some wrinkle-nosed bats, and pieces of ancient Mayan pottery. Afterward we set up some pitfall traps of urine and water along the Maya trail to investigate if canopy dwelling species (particularly arthropods) were more limited to nitrogen than forest floor dwelling species and looked at what might have been some Mayan plazas. We then climbed to the top of what appears to be a hill but is suspected to be an ancient Mayan ceremonial temple. That’s all for now everybody! Thanks for reading! 🙂
Hello everyone! As today’s title implies, today’s activities focused on a few different species of ants. This morning we split into a few different groups and performed experiments to test how Cecropia trees, which usually rely on a symbiosis with Aztec ants to fend off herbivores, survive before they are old enough to provide for ants. My group in particular focused on if there is a physical difference between the young and old Cecropia trees that resulted in this deterrence. One way we did this was using a penetrometer to test the toughness of the leaves.
During the day, we also found a trail of Army ants along the road and the cone-shaped holes of the ant lion under the classroom building. In the afternoon, we excavated three leaf-cutter ant nests to find the fungi that they cultivate. It was really cool to see all of the different castes of these ants as they swarmed out of the nests and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.
A peek into the leaf-cutter ants’ fungi garden
In terms of beetle spottings, one small narrow bodied black beetle (I believe it was of a similar species to the Brentus anchorago beetle based on its body shape, similar abdomen and thorax size, and very narrow snout) was found near the 10 year ant nest. There was also a 2-3 cm black and brown beetle (I think it might also have been a ground beetle, similar to the Lebia genus) with a narrow body in the classroom. A tiny black beetle of around 1 cm was also found on a leaf of a small tree around a juvenile Cecropia tree. This beetle I think was of the Cysteodemus genus based on its highly rounded abdomen covered with punctate marks. There were also more fireflies of the same species as yesterday (Ellychnia within the Lampyridae family). Finally, there was a black ground beetle (family Carabidae, species similar to Calosoma calidum or a species in the genus Harpalus) of about 4 cm crawling around in the girls’ bathroom sink late tonight. Thanks for reading everyone! 🙂
Hello hello everyone! Before I get into any of the day’s activities, I have some very exciting news! Last night, I had two taxa sightings! The first was a black ground beetle (Pterostichus melanarius) in the family Carabidae spotted in the classroom in the building next to ours as it crawled along the walls. The second was a flat faced longhorn beetle (Callipogon barbatus) and was actually in one of my classmate’s hair.
A banded netwinged beetle (Calopteron discrepans)
Today I was also able to identify three different beetle species. There was another ground beetle, this time of a dark coppery almost black color, that was crawling on the ground near the base of the Bird Tower and a banded netwinged beetle (Calopteron discrepans) near the base of a large fallen tree as well as many fireflies (we captured one and I believe it was the species Ellychnia corrusca within the Lampyridae family based on the stripes on its back and lack of distinct median ridge) flickering about during our hike through the rainforest.
A firefly (Ellychnia corrusca)
Speaking of which, today we went out into the Chiquibul Forest for the first time and what an experience that was! Over 31,400 steps taken, over 13 miles covered, over 2800 calories burned, and over 120 flights of stairs later, we had set up 12 camera traps to take pictures of the species that roam the area for the next five days. Now I am going to head to bed and get some rest for tomorrow’s activities. Thanks for reading! 🙂
Hi everyone! I’m checking in today from the porch of Las Cuevas research station after another busy and fun day. It began with an early morning open air breakfast at 6 am filled with cool bird sightings (we saw a blue-crowned motmot and a brown jay among other things) followed by travels to Caracol and an exploration of the ruins of the Mayan city.
It was really neat to climb to the top of the different ruins and learn a lot about the history of the area from our awesome tour guide. He told us about balsa bark and how it cleanses blood, about how the Mayans climbed up the ruins on their hands and knees to humble themselves before the Gods, and the structure of the old city and how it resembled the spokes of a wheel with the elite living in the capital at the middle of the spoke and the agricultural peasants living around the edges as well as many other topics.
After our picnic lunch, our plans to swim in the waterfalls at Rio On got deterred due to the lack of transmission fluid in the van, so we took a break in the middle of the dirt road and learned about termites as one of the taxa presentations for the day. Eventually we made it here to Las Cuevas research station, where we will be spending the next week. Sitting here sweaty and satisfied with the day’s activities thus far, I have to say I am equally excited for the shower tonight and for the next week ahead! 🙂
A quick note about any taxa sightings before I end today’s post: Other than a small click beetle (family Elateridae) I spied among the dead leaf litter at the base of a large tree in the ruins, observations of my taxa were not prevalent today, but I am sure there will be more to identify during this upcoming week in the rainforest. Species sightings did abound today in other taxa. We saw are a coati (small mammal), a gumbo limbo tree (nicknamed tourist tree because of its red peeling bark), and an anole (a small brown lizard) on the way to Caracol, many lichens, birds, and a philodendra fruit (which we sampled) while in the ruins, and toucans and butterflies on the road to Las Cuevas.
