Morning cave expedition!! This morning, I got the chance to finally do a bit of laundry while the first round of TFBs went into the Las Cuevas cave system. Afterwards, we quickly set off to collect our pitfall traps, wanting to waste no time. Around 11:30am we returned with the traps and began the presentations for the day.

The first presentation focused on bees, and I learned a few things that made me less afraid! So many of the bees here are actually stingless, or not aggressive. There are a few species that have been Africanized and are actually quite aggressive with stingers, but for the most part it sounds like they are not out to get me.

We also learned about arachnids, one fun fact was that the red rump tarantula can be crushed and combined with alcohol and herbs to treat muscular dystrophy!

(Lizard caught by the cave)

So, going over the results from our pitfall trap experiment was honestly quite gross. It smelled awful by the sink and I felt so bad for Sam, who had to go through all of the samples and identify the (pee-covered) ants, which was unsurprisingly the most common taxon caught in the traps. I made the drawing for our poster methods which was quite fun!

This evening, we hiked to the bird tower for sunset! It was absolutely unreal seeing the rainforest from that vantage point. I just couldnt believe how lucky I was to be up there taking it all in with th other TFBs.

Once the sun had gone down on our hike back, I think I saw a few cockroaches come out! I definitely saw a few of the brown-banded cockroach, or supella longipalpa, hiding around some bark and leaves on the way back to Las Cuevas, and I think I may have also spotted a peppered roach, too!

-Emily