There were two main activites of the day—one involved urine and the other involved feces.

The urine one: we collected our pee in the morning as a nitrogen source to entice the elusive insects of the forest. Essentially, we were comparing the diversity of insects between the canopy and the forest floor. The urine (and a control sample of water) will attract some insects, and we can then quantify the insects and compare biodiversity between the locations.

My Orthoptera of the day were plentiful: a small, striped one that looked like Cornops aquaticum (pictured below) but probably wasn’t because the latter tend to be found in semi-aquatic habitats; a beautiful red-winged grasshopper that I only saw fly away like a bird into the skies, scarlet wings beating; a lovely dull-brown katydid (that I touched! and then immediately un-touched) on a leaf in the jungle; and about four other smaller species that I didn’t know the names of.

The highlight of the day was the caving, which took place in the afternoon. We headed into a local cave that almost no one goes into, and began our trek into the darkness. Honestly, I was more taken by the formations of stalactites and stalagmites (beautiful white crystalline structures, hanging like sharp teeth) than by the tiny biological life forms on the floor (which included worms, millipedes, isopods, ants, the like). There were bats as well, important cave creatures, and we saw a whole flock of baby bats huddled together on the ceiling.

There was a moment, a very good and unforgettable moment, of total darkness where we all turned off our lights. Something about it was surreal. I grinned the whole time, eyes wide staring into nothing. I swear to you I saw silhouettes of crickets carved into the darkness—this is the level of my imprinting.