Today’s bird watching session was really awesome. I saw almost all the birds I saw yesterday again. The vultures seem to have multiplied… maybe they know something we don’t. The Plumbeous Kite was hanging out in its tree again. In addition to those guys, there were a pair of Toucans, which were extremely pretty, and an Montezuma Oropendola, which added its distinctive cry to the morning symphony.

In the morning we did a study on the Cecropia tree and the Azteca ants. Usually these ants will defend adult cecropias but we wanted to find out what types of defenses against herbivores the juvenile cecropias have before they get colonized by ants. My group wanted to look at the potential difference between juvenile and adult leaves, maybe a change in characteristics can mitigate herbivore damage before the ants arrive. We took size and toughness measurements of leaves from 5 adult trees and 2 juvenile trees. We’ll do more data analysis tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes.

In the afternoon we went and dug out some leaf cutters ant nests. We started with a young nest, then moved up to a slightly older nest and finally a mega nest. We dug until we hit their fungi chambers where they keep their fungi gardens (their food) and their babies. The mega nest was pretty dangerous, a couple of people, including myself, bitten whilst trying to find the chambers. Their bites are pretty gnarly but at least they don’t sting.

I didn’t die from ants, so it was a good day.

-Randy