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Day 8: Adventures in the dark

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We left Las Cuevas this morning. After all the amazing animals and plants we saw, I think I could have spent the whole trip at the station exploring the rainforest, but I’m also excited to see what the reef has in store for us. We started the morning with a 3-hour drive out of the forest reserve to ATM cave. On the way, we passed through a massive tree farm where they were growing mahogany, cedar, cohune palm, and soursop, among other things. They were clearing land and burning logs to enrich the soil in the region—it was interesting to see, although from my research I know that method is imperfect.


At ATM cave, there was a short hike which was easy relative to the hiking we’d been doing on a wide path lined with balsa trees and several other interesting plants such as wild ginger. There were several shallow river crossings which were a preview of what was to come: in the cave, we started out by swimming for a short stretch and then wading through the cave. We got to see tons of artifacts and even human remains. Apparently the chambers became used for ritual purposes aim an attempt to secure good rain and, as drought impacted the Maya, they moved deeper and deeper into the cave in a desperate attempt to save their society. The most amazing thing, to me, was almost all of the remains and artifacts had been calcified to the cave, cementing them in the structure of the floor. It sort of seemed like they were being reclaimed by the cave. It’s difficult to describe, and pictures weren’t allowed, but if you’re curious I believe one of the more complete skeletons we saw was featured on the cover of Natural Geographic.

We got to the Tropical Education Center, the ecolodge we’ll be staying at tonight, around dinner time. After dinner, we had a night tour of the zoo and we got to see tons of nocturnal animals. It was exciting to see many animals we didn’t get to see in the rainforest. My favorite was the kinkajou—so cute! It rained a bit while we were at the zoo. Maybe the rainy season is finally beginning?

Tomorrow is another travel day—most of it will be the ferry to Glover’s Reef. It begins the exciting second part of the course and I’m so curious and excited to see what’s in store. You’ll be hearing a lot more from me about cryptobenthic fish, that’s for sure.

A spectacled owl
A kinkajou!
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Day 6: Putting the caves in Las Cuevas

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This morning started with seeing (and hearing) howler monkeys from the station. It wasn’t the first time we’d heard them but it was the first time I was able to spot them so that was exciting. After breakfast, we were treated to a tour of the cave system right by Las Cuevas by the karst team, a group within FCD who map and manage the cave. It was super cool, both literally and figuratively. We saw Maya artifacts and beautiful cave formations. One thing that made it especially special was that the cave is only open to researchers, and there are active research projects going on, so we had an especially unique opportunity. That also meant that we weren’t allowed to take pictures, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was stunning.

The next thing we did was collect the pitfall traps. It went pretty quickly, since we knew exactly where they were and only had to fish them out of the ground and take them down off the trunks. It took us about an hour in total, only fifteen minutes of which was actually taking down the traps. They seemed to have worked pretty well, although for me my ground traps had collected a lot of leaf litter as well. I suppose it’s par for the course in the rainforest.

Taking down a pitfall trap.
Taking down my pitfall traps!

After lunch, we analyzed number and diversity of different species in the traps to test our initial hypothesis. We ended up having a wide array of different types of insects in our traps—mainly ants, but also crickets, flies, spiders, and more. It took us a while to sort through all the traps, but at the end we found that the differences between the nitrogen traps and the water traps were more stark in the canopy, indicating that nitrogen was more limited their and confirming our initial hypothesis. There were some limitations, of course—the traps weren’t all buried or hung the same, for example—but I would say pretty good for a pilot study!

Proud TFBs with our pitfall trap poster!

In the evening, we hiked up to the bird tower to watch the sun set. The bird tower is watchtower built back when the camp was first established which overlooks the rainforest. It’s on a rise, so it has a great view of the surroundings. We saw the vibrant colors of the sunset from the tower and also got to see an unrivaled perspective of the rainforest. It’s the largest intact stretch of rainforest north of the Amazon, and it shows—you truly cannot see any sign of humans except for Las Cuevas. It was an incredible sight. On the hike there , we also saw a breadnut tree, which was exciting for me—that’s one of the interesting edible & medicinal trees that I researched before the trip. We spent a while around the bird tower and then hiked back to Las Cuevas in the dark.

Tomorrow’s the last full day at Las Cuevas! The rainforest portion of the trip is nearly over. I can’t believe how this trip had flown by.

TFBs viewed from the bird tower
The bird tower.
The bird tower
Rainforest, as far as the eye can see
The Chiquibul forest, viewed from the bird tower.
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day 6: down down down and up up up

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Today’s daily 6 am birding happened to turn into monkeying instead. Right when I woke up, we were told to look out the back of the Las Cuevas clearing to see a family of 5 howler monkeys. There was an adult male and female and their three kids including a young male, female, and baby girl. The baby was tiny and would occasionally climb on mom’s back when the monkeys had to make treacherous treks across branches. They were fascinating to watch as they moved from tree to tree. 

(Howler monkey)

 Then, we were so lucky to have the opportunity to visit the Las Cuevas Cave (translated to “the cave cave”). This cave has a massive entrance, and while we were not allowed to go past the first chamber, the entrance chamber alone was a spectacle. We got to see fully formed stalactites and stalagmites as well as just barely starting to form stalactites and stalagmites. Additionally, we learned about how this cave system was used by the Mayans. There were ancient plaster terraces, cracked pottery, and steps leading down to the water source at the bottom all created by the Mayans hundreds of years ago. This cavern was also right beneath a Maya temple which archaeologists think means that the cave was used for religious ceremonies to worship the rain god (for the water source below) or the god of the underworld. 

In the middle of the day, Dr. Solomon caught a casque headed basilisk lizard and brought it to us. Basilisk lizards (or Jesus Christ lizards) are known to be able to run on water for short periods of time. They have super long toes that maximize the water’s surface tension and allow them to sprint on the water to avoid predators. This lizard was super cool to see in person, and it was the reptile I most wanted to see here in Belize!

(Casque headed basilisk lizard)

This evening, we watched the sunset from the Bird Tower, a tower on one of the taller hills around that looks over the wide expanse of rainforest. The trek up to the tower was steep, but it was worth it for the gorgeous sunset. I saw a tiny silky anole on the trek back down, but since we were hiking in the dark, I can only imagine how many more reptiles we did not see. 

(Sunset at the bird tower)

Thanks for following along!

Claire C

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The Ant-Man Super Bowl: Leafcutter Nest Excavation

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May 20, 2025
Hello again! As you can tell from the title, today was yet another amazing day at Las Cuevas Research Station. The day began with some light birdwatching, during which we saw some flying macaws, a toucan, and a Northern Mealy Amazon parrot. These were very cool to see!
Our morning and half of the afternoon was filled with finishing up the Cecropia experiment and listening to presentations. Before I get into what we did with the second part of the afternoon, I’ll illustrate the results of our experiment. As you can see from the poster below, the question “was how do young cecropia trees defend themselves if they’re not colonized and protected by a colony of Azteca ants?” Unfortunately, our results were inconclusive. Due to limitations on time, we weren’t able to catch Orthoptera herbivores of the same species, so that factor was not standard, and we also had the problem of hydration of the leaves (we can’t know if the leaves were absorbing water, or how much they had at the time oof weighing, because we are in a field station with only one afternoon and one morning to devote to this project.) So, the results were inconclusive, but you can read our poster pictured below. (The poster was a collaborative effort; if you know me, you know that’s not my handwriting.) After the project was over, we had a presentation from the Rafael Manzanero, director of the Friends for Conservation and Development, which is a really cool Belizean NGO that manages the LCRS, Chiquibul National Park and Forest Reserve, and they defend it. They have armed rangers, filling the role that the government plays in the US. It was very interesting to hear from him. After that, I gave my Ants Taxon Briefing, Lily gave hers on Epiphytes, and Dyllan talked about plant-insect interactions. During those presentation, we also heard from Yasmini Manzanero, the FCD’s Cultural Heritage and Karst Expert, and she briefed us on the cave system we are to explore tomorrow.
After those presentations, we had the ant-man Super Bowl: we excavated leafcutter ant nests to find their fungal garden. This was truly exciting. First, we approached the young colony (~1 year in age, 1 entrance) which is in the clearing right next to Jane’s (LCRS Manager) cabin. This is an optimal location for a Leafcutter colony because they like forest edges. The edges provide easy access to fresh vegetation for their fungus, while also providing the queen easy access to get into the ground quickly. We began our excavation by digging next to the colony, because fungal gardens (which is where the queen is) aren’t usually underneath the colony entrance, but they’re off to the side. Excavating this way minimizes damage to the colony’s structure and garden. This was so fun, because Dr. Solomon pulled out the entire fungal garden on a large kitchen spoon. With the whole garden came the queen, which was also awesome to see. She was so huge, because she has to store her sperm for up to 20-25 years and she also has to store her fungus when she leaves the colony she’s from, so she had a lot going on. It was super cool to see her.
Once we had thoroughly explored the young colony, we approached the mature colony. The mature colony was ~x years old and had many entrances. We selected this mature colony because it was raised, meaning the fungal gardens would be easier to access. This colony presented a problem though: the many hundreds and thousands of soldier ants that swarmed as we excavated. This meant that everyone had to put their things far away, and continually stomp soldier ants off their boots so they didn’t chew through them. As the ant-man, I was excited to see the horde of ants flowing out of the nest like a mighty stream and I grabbed the shovel. I was mostly successful, but I did get one battle wound. This was quite a different wound, as it hurt in the moment but it faded quickly. It also bled a lot, which was concerning (and turned my stomach bc I do not like blood very much) but that also subsided quickly. All in all, it was a great ant-super bowl and I’m super proud to have been a part of the excavating. After the wounds, we found the fungus. This fungus was interesting because a) there was much more of it, naturally, and b) It had a different texture than the fungus of the young colony. I’d be interested to compare them in a lab.
Following dinner, we had our first night hike. We saw a rare Pauroque bird (one of the “heard not seen” birds,) but the coolest thing we saw was the leafcutter ant highway. During the day, you see a couple or even a steady stream of ants flowing on these highways. At night, this highway was PACKED. It probably looked like the Katy Freeway when they brought 45, 90, and 180 to Rice. It is pictured below.
Images:
Cecropia Experiment Poster (if you have seen me write, you know that I did not write this. It was a collaborative effort.)
Battle wound from Excavation of Mature Colony (Got bit by Soldier Atta cephalotes)
Young Colony’s Fungal Garden
Ant Highway During Night Hike
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Fungi, Ants, and Caves…Oh My!

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Hey y’all,

Today was a bit different than the past few days because we spent most of it indoors for a bunch of reasons. First, we finished the trials with the insects in the leaf containers. After releasing the insects, we found that the leaves from the ant-guarded trees had been eaten less than the leaves from unguarded trees. I was shocked because I would have thought that the leaves usually guarded by ants would be easy to eat once the ants were gone, but what we saw indicates otherwise.

We then got two big surprises: The directors of the Friends for Conservation and Development talked to us about their work in preserving the wildlife of the Chiquibul Forest, especially the Scarlet Macaw, and the Chiquibul Cave System! This is the largest cave system in Central America with at least 40 miles of passages mapped out! We’re even gonna explore some of it tomorrow morning! I’m super excited because there are a whole bunch of different animals that only live in caves and a lot of sites with ancient Maya artifacts!

Our project for the day was to find fungi gardens inside Leafcutter Ant colonies. We first found a small one that was around one year old, and the fungi colony was about the size of a tennis ball with an enormous queen!

Then, we found a colony that we thought was between 10-25 years old. While digging for the colony, ant soldiers swarmed out of the hole like lava out of a volcano, and I was hopping the entire time to keep them off of my boots!

I did not see a bunch of spiders today except for a Wolf Spider and another bigger spider carrying babies on her back! Sadly, the mama spider crawled underground before I could snap a picture of her, but here’s a cool picture of the Wolf Spider below.

While I’m a little nervous for my arachnid presentation tomorrow, I think it should be pretty fun to finally share with my classmates what I’ve learned about arachnids!

Keep it Cool!

Serenity

2022

Bug madness

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I know I said yesterday was the first day in the rain forest, but today was the actual first day in the rainforest!

We started out the day by figuring out how we were going to conduct research with the camera traps. We decided to look at the abundance of different types of mammals on different passageways, including the main road, the trails, and forest. Once we had our methods figured out and a plan for which path to take, we were on our way! We set six camera traps in the morning-all five road traps and one trail trap. We returned to the station for lunch, and then set out for the afternoon to walk another trail and set the other ten traps (four more trail traps, five forest traps, and one for-fun trap at a pond). We were out in the rain forest from 1:30 until 6:15, which was absolutely amazing. We got rained on a bit (which is always exciting for me because I’m from CA), and the forest was super lush and full of so much life.

Sophia lost her boot in the mud

We saw a lot of amazing things. I actually saw a bunch of orthoptera, which I wasn’t entirely expecting, since they’re so good at camouflage. I saw some tiny crickets in the grass, possibly a pygmy mole cricket, and a small green katydid on the branch of a tree.

I saw a group of black grasshoppers with red heads on the branch of a small tree as well. I thought it was odd that they were in a group, as grasshoppers and other orthoptera are usually solitary. I also saw a small-ish brown cricket that looked almost like the the jerusalem cricket.

The most amazing orthoptera sighting for me was at night during the post-dinner presentations! I got to see a huge leaf mimic katydid (shoutout Michael for grabbing it for me)-it was probably about 3 or so inches long! In order to grab katydids, you have to grab their wings and their femurs because their back legs are so strong, they can push against your hand and make you lose your grip. We also saw a smaller katydid, maybe two inches long (shoutout Rusty for catching it). Both were a vibrant green, and their wings really did look like leaves! Too bad they were in a classroom, so their camouflage didn’t work so well.

Overall the day was jam-packed with excitement. We saw a bunch of other really cool organisms, such as birds, beetles, cockroaches, and ants, as well as countless trees and epiphytes that we had only just read about in the text book. We got to try eating termites (which taste sort of like carrots!), and we climbed to the top of a bird watch tower to see the amazing view! We also saw a cave that had maya pottery and a wall in it, and a giant leaf cutter ant nest, that was probably about three or four feet in diameter.

from the top of the bird watch tower!
scarlet macaws

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings, since today the main focus was just setting the camera traps!

-Elena

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Cave + Urine Experiment + Coral Snake = 4.3 miles.

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I woke up to people commanding me to pee inside a tube. “50 mills in two tubes” they said. I beat everyone else’s pee in coloration, which I like to think may be indication I have the highest concentration of nitrogen in my urine. And that’s relevant because, Scott tells us, one of the crucial limiting nutrients of the the canopy in tropical rain forests. After about an hour of questions, discussion, and writing in our field notebooks, we narrowed in on what exactly this urine experiment was going to be.

General question: How does different levels of limiting nutrients, such as nitrogen, affect insect biodiversity.

Context: In nutrient-poor soils of the tropical rainforests, nitrogen is often a limiting factor of life. It is more limiting in the canopy.

Main Hypothesis: The species richness in urine traps of canopy will be higher than water traps of canopy. This differential is greater than the same type of differential found in the forest floor, suggesting that nitrogen is more of a limiting nutrient in the canopy than in the forest floor.

After 2 days, we will collect our traps and count the numbers of the insect species we have captured.
For more on our project, please check a later blog post, which will contain our findings.

Also, today I found a bee hive outside of the dining room, with many yellow-abdomen bees coming out. They had all the similar morphological traits of a bee I had on my taxon identification card, but these had white front feet. I will have to look through more identification literature to see which species this is.

EBIO 319 In front of Las Cuevas Cave

The other half of our daytime was dedicated to something that better resembled the night. Walking in complete darkness during our first cave exploration. Las Cuevas (spanish for ‘the caves’) caves, are unlit karst formations that resulted from acidic water cutting through limestone. After many years, a whole underground network of life has formed, including the fertilizing bats who power the cave ecosystem through their feces and the accidental venturers who decay inside after failing to find a way out. Guano, truly, is a a glorified name for bat shit. You know, when people say, “that’s some crazy bat shit”… Well, it turns out that a whole ecosystem inside of the Las Cuevas caves (and many other caves around wthe world) depend on guano, both those of bats, and those from crickets. Cave millipedes ingest and digest guano and without it would not be able to survive. I would like to say more, but the fact on the matter is that we do not konw enough. Life there has been unidentified to a large degree, comparable to the deep sea or even extraterrestial life.

Currently, many explorers in these caves are people who are daring and willing to take on the complete darkness and the scary unknowns that come with being in caves. We were told by Raphael, leader of the Friends of Conservation and Development (NGO in Belize), that “we know that each time someone goes into the cave they find a new species”. At the very least, someone ought to write a post-apocalyptic novel revolving around life in the caves. One of the last things we did in the caves was to use guano mud to write and draw on the cave wall. Having heard stories about the Mayan demise, it makes me wonder, when it comes to cave art, how much we, as a species, has evolved in leaving behind markers of our existence and what, if any, meaning can be derived from our symbolic representation after our species has either evolved or died out.

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Day 4: Pee in Vials; Not in Caves!

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Blog Post #4

Day 4: Pee in Vials, Not in Caves!

Written on May 19that 7:13 am

 

DISCLAIMER: Las Cuevas was supposed to have internet—right now, it isn’t working. All LCRS posts from the rainforest will be posted after the fact!

I didn’t write this blog post last night because I was just so, so tired! I fell asleep with the lights on (3rdnight in a row) with lots of people chattering around me.

Anyways, we started the day with birding—we tracked the beautiful scarlet macaw mated pair as they chattered away. During this time, Scott handed us 2 50 mL vials and told us to fill each with 25 mL of urine. It was a very odd way to start the day, but turns out, our second project had to do with nitrogen scarcity and insect diversity in the canopy vs the forest floor.

Once we developed our question, hypotheses, null hypotheses, and methods, we set out to bury and hang out samples along with water vial controls. We picked two different sections of the same trail and placed them roughly 100 ft apart. We’ll collect them after two days to analyze what kinds of bugs fell into our pitfall traps! During our hike, Sam did spot a red-banded coral snake under a log and we got to watch it slither away.

In the afternoon, we had the special opportunity to spelunk into the Las Cuevas Cave, just a mere 100 yards away from our clearing. It was beautiful!! The stalactites and stalagmites glistened, glittered, and shined with all kinds of minerals. Since the cave has technically been closed for archaeological excavation research, it was relatively untouched and purely natural. Biologically speaking, we saw a bunch (literally) of baby bats (see pic), adult bats, crabs, isopods, mites, and an amblypygid (a glorified spider), and a peccary skeleton. Mayan wise, there was a nearly intact bowl, a metate (grinding stone), faces carved into the rock (rudimentary, but very noticeable), bone fragments from human sacrifices, and lots of shattered pieces of pottery. It was really incredible to walk the same walk and see the same sights as the kings or high priests of the Maya culture did when they worshipped in this cave to their rain god Chaac.

In the evening, we had our lectures, and a somewhat rare amphibian sighting! There was a frog in the window, and I caught/held it (see pic). I’m unsure of what kind of frog this was, but when we reach internet, I’ll for sure look it up! (UPDATE: It was a Mexican Tree Frog without its coloring since it was night time)

(Hey Mom and Dad, do I look happy? :D)

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Day 5: Cave Mysteries

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Today was a bit low on cockroaches, mostly because our group was out busily setting up our pitfall traps. We wanted to analyze differences in nitrogen limitations (AKA organisms desire for nitrogen compounds) between creatures that live high in the forest canopy and those that live on the ground since distribution of nutrients is different in those locations. These traps held nitrogen bait (human urine!) and served to trap insects within. One trap was set onto a tree and another on the ground. Maybe this will be a good chance to see a few roaches!

Most of the roaches that I have found in Belize were often under a pile of leaves, feeding on decaying matter. The advantages of such a bottom-dweller lifestyle is double edged. Dead materials are not usually heavily competed for due to abundance of microbes and leaf litter provides excellent protection from predators and aspiring entomologists like myself. Perhaps in light of this, I can predict that if the traps can fit roaches, then I should find more roaches in the ground traps than in the tree traps. But whether their contribution to our question on differences in nitrogen limitations of the canopy and the ground will matter is up in the air until tomorrow when we retrieve our traps. Before then, I can only guess.

A roach was sighted during a noon leisure excursion to one of the Las Cuevas trails. It was tiny, wingless and fast moving. I tried to snap a photo, but it managed to hide a part of its body behind one of the spines of a give and take palm. Better than nothing I guess! I could improve my roach findings by perhaps searching during one of our night hikes!

Other than trap setups, our team visited a cave near where we lived, learning about the caves history and use by the ancient Mayan societies as a ceremonial ritual between their chief and the nine realms of the underworld that each section of the cave represented. In spite of the uneven terrain and low oxygen levels, I was captured by the mystery surrounding the cave structures and biological life! We spotted bats, tiny insects like diplurans, isopods, crickets, and even large millipedes, and learned how these creatures were sustained by cave nutrition. This may come in the form of droppings by bats or by nutrients entering the cave. No roaches, so bummer for me, but exciting nevertheless to explore one of the mysterious habitats of the earth!

Into the cave we go!
Into the cave we go!

P.S: speaking of mysteries, we found a peccary skeleton in a tiny chamber of a cave. I wonder how it got there? Did it wander through the pitch-black cave and get lost, or was it brought in as sacrifice by an ancient tribe.

 

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Day 5: MAMMALS!!

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Today was the best day at Las Cuevas thus far. In comparison to most other days, I saw many mammals today of various new species. The most exciting viewing occurred at the very beginning of the day, during an early morning walk in the forest. As I neared the entrance to the research station clearing, a tayra (type of weasel) walked across the path about 15 to 20 meters ahead. The tayra looked very typical, with a dark brown body, paler head, and yellowish chest patch. Upon seeing me, the animal raised its tail and began to growl softly. After taking a few steps forward, it calmly decided that I was not worth its time and walked off into the forest. Amazing!

Tayra captured as it walks back into the forest cover
Tayra captured as it walks back into the forest cover

We had a few other mammal encounters today. As has occurred the last few days, we heard Mexican black howler monkeys from the research station. Today, the howling was more frequent and louder. I’m hoping that this means that we can actually find them in the forest soon.

Additionally, we saw two species of bats when we visited the Las Cuevas caves. The nine-chamber system used to be an ancient Mayan ritual site, as can be seen by the built structures and pottery sherds (sherds for pottery, shards for glass, as I learned today). While crawling through the caves, we came across a small group of wrinkle-faced bats roosting in the cave ceiling. In another chamber, we saw a larger group of what were likely gray fruit bats hanging upside down from the ceiling. The high-pitched sounds made by these animals was really cool to experience.

Gray fruit bats with distinctive noseleaves
Gray fruit bats with distinctive noseleaves

We also started another project today that we will conclude tomorrow. We set up vials of urine (produced locally) and water (as a control) as pit-fall traps for insects and other arthropods. We put half of these in trees and half in the ground to test whether tree species are more attracted to the nitrogen-rich urine due to nitrogen limitation in the canopy. Hopefully we’ll catch some cool creatures overnight!

Finally, one of tonight’s lectures was given by Boris Arevalo, a biologist for Friends for Conservation and Development. He discussed the various challenges and opportunities associated with the Chiquibul forest, and how conservation involves an understanding of social, political, and ecological issues. I found this very fascinating, especially as he discussed the delicate situation between Guatemala and Belize at the border. I look forward to hearing more from other researchers here at the station tomorrow!