In the spirit of a true field course, today we set pit fall traps with our own urine. We are trying to test the differences in needs for nitrogen in Arthropods based on forest layers. We didn’t do too much hiking today, but I guess today was a bit more taxing on our mental strength than our physical.

Wrapping up our herbivory preference trials from yesterday, we found inconclusive results in terms of the presence of chemical defense in young Cecropia trees. This result was fairly expected based upon the small sample size, but in some cases I was a bit shocked. Six of the eight herbivores used(one caterpillar, one beetle, six orthoptera) did not consume any foliage. I had expected to see more bite marks on the leaves I suppose.

While we did not hike much today [so not many Lepidoptera sighting chances], I did still see Lepidoptera. When we went on the trail around the archeological sites at the research station to set our pit fall traps, I saw some butterfly. I mostly saw small brush-footed. I keep seeing one that’s about 6 cm in wingspan and it white with black markings and I am just not completely sure which it is. A classmate who is particularly skilled with the butterfly net managed to catch one of the fast flying teal and black swallowtails. I did not try with the net today but I managed to catch a moth in my room last night. It is  not listed in the additional field guide I have so I am not sure what it was. About 2 cm in wingspan, it was yellow and brown to the point it was almost colorful.

Tomorrow we will have to collect the traps, but we will also get to hear another guest lecture from one of the researchers at the station. We heard a presentation tonight focused on the area that we are staying in. I’m glad we are getting to learn more about the Chiquibul forest and I feel I’m starting to feel a bit more at ease with the constant animal and forest noises I don’t usually hear in the city.

Today was ant day. In the morning we set up some Tupperware boxes with leaves and different herbivores- a caterpillar, an odd beetle (?), and six orthoptera. The leaves are from Cecropia or trumpet trees and are usually filled with Azteca ants-unless they are quite young. So we are trying to see differences in the herbivory on mature Trumpet trees that have ants already and the young that do not, results that could be indicative of some sort of chemical defense in the young trees lacking the defense provided by ants. So of course we went out into the field. We were tasked with collecting the leaves and herbivorous generalists we would use in our set up. Trumpet trees tend to grow in disrupted areas such as roads. We therefore began walking down the road.

While searching for our materials we saw lots of insects, including Lepidoptera. We saw army ant soldiers that have huge mandibles. I also saw a lot of Blue Morpho butterflies. It seemed right when I let my guard down one would fly by quickly, always evading my net. I also saw another heliconia and realized I had misidentified the one I saw yesterday. Along the road side one kept fluttering in and out of the brush. The one yesterday and the one today were both “postman butterflies” or Heliconius melpomene rosina. And the Blue Morpho continued to tease me. A small satyr-looking butterfly landed on someones hand also.

In the afternoon, we excavated leaf-cutter ant nests. The last one was down one of the trails a bit and is over ten years old. There are millions of ants in the single nest and a good deal of them went into a frenzy when we began digging. The ants can pinch through skin and made a couple people bleed. They can also cut through shoe laces…hence why we wear rain boots. Around dusk, walking back to the station, I saw one of the most impressive butterflies. The Owl butterfly can grow over 7 inches in wingspan and one landed in front of me on the trail. I saw the closed wings, so its gorgeous eyespots were visible.

Successful net catches today = 2 butterflies. I have a very low success rate, but I am improving.