Tag Archives: leaf cutter ants

Parrots, Ants, Beetles oh my!

May 21, 2025 nsh1 Leave a comment

Hi! Day 3/5 in the jungle! Today we listened to a lot of presentations. One was by the head of FRC where we got to learn more about their mission and role they play in LCRS and the surrounding areas. The other was about the caves here in LCRS and the cultural importance of them.

Then we did a leaf cutter nest extraction. We found young leaf cutter ant that looked to be about 1.5 years old and had few ants. We got to see the queen on the fungal garden and see how big she was! This nest was young enough that the hive had no army ants yet. We then extracted an older leaf cutter nest that was about 20-25 years old! That one definitely had army ants. We were stomping our boots left and right. This nest had a guest cockroach and was absolutely massive. We dug in through the side to find the fungal garden of that nest as well. That fungal garden was huge with multiple chambers.

We then went on a night hike to finish the day. We put on our head lamps and headed out. Unfortunately we didn’t see much but a few cockroaches, tarantulas and other insects. We did see a lot of beetles though! There was one during dinner and a few during the various hikes throughout the day. The beetles we found were dung beetles and herbivores beetles.

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Birds, Ants, and Fungi: A Day of Discovery in the Chiquibul

May 21, 2025 zg30 Leave a comment

Our day began with birding in the morning—and it did not disappoint. Within minutes, we saw a toucan showing off its enormous beak from the treetops. A red-crowned Amazon parrot soon followed, its call echoing through the canopy. The real showstopper, though, was a scarlet macaw soaring overhead, its vivid colors lighting up the sky. These species are not only beautiful—they’re also a vital part of the Chiquibul’s ecosystem and a major reason why this forest deserves protection.

After breakfast, we had a presentation from the head of Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD), the organization responsible for managing the Chiquibul Forest. He talked about the forest’s biodiversity, the illegal activities that threaten it, and the work being done to protect it. It was eye-opening to hear just how much effort goes into preserving a place like this—especially when it covers such a vast and remote area.

Following that, we learned more about one of the Chiquibul’s most fascinating features: its cave systems. The presentation covered how these caves form, what kinds of species live inside them (lots of bats!), and their cultural importance as ancient Maya ceremonial sites. It was amazing to realize how much life and history exists not just above ground, but also below it.

In the afternoon, we shifted gears for some fieldwork. Our group investigated fungi growth on leaf-cutter ant colonies, comparing younger and older colonies to see how fungal size varies with colony age. These ants farm fungi as their food source, so changes in the fungi can tell us a lot about colony development and forest dynamics. Watching the ants carry leaf pieces in single-file lines was like watching a tiny, efficient city at work.

From birds in the treetops to bats in the caves and ants underfoot, today offered a full-spectrum look at life in the Chiquibul. It’s wild, complex, and full of surprises—and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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Me and Stella

May 21, 2025 dml10 Leave a comment

Hello again. We just got back from our night hike, and it was quite lovely. Although we didn’t see a snake, we did smell some sort of big cat where some people had heard cat sounds before, so we think there’s a puma or ocelot around. I really hope our camera traps get a picture. We also saw a few cool bugs. We found lots of moths, but it was difficult for me to identify them or get a good picture because they are moving so fast. Sadhana got a picture of a really big one, so I plan to ID it later. Another cool bug we saw was a weevil. I covered weevils in my presentation today on plant insect interactions in the tropics, so it was nice to see one out in the field.

Earlier in the day, we saw another example of an insect plant mutualism from my presentation, which is leaf cutter ants! We excavated a young mound first and found the fungal garden and the queen. This mutualism is so cool because despite leaf cutter ants being known for their ability to cut and carry leaves, these leaves are actually to feed the fungus that they maintain in their own garden of sorts. As fungivores, these leaves fungus is their source of food. The queen that we saw started her nest by taking a piece of fungus from her origin nest, initiating a mating flight, and then finding a new spot to start laying eggs for her colony. The success rate of these new colonies are low, but they can be maintained for dozens of years, like the next mound that we excavated to find the fungal garden, which was ENORMOUS. I was really nervous about how we were standing right in the midst of all these giant, angry ants with giant mandibles, but the boots did a great job at keeping us safe.

While not a mutualism, my favorite part of the day was finding a stick bug friend that hung around with us for a little bit. His names is Stella, and he seemed to enjoy crawling up and down our faces and backs.

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Belize Day 4: Buggin Around

May 20, 2025 lh70 Leave a comment

This morning, Elise and I discovered that there was definitely maybe a jaguar (or some other feline-y mammal) strolling around our cabin. Last night, when we were frolicking around the clearing of grass around our cabin, trying to spot stars whenever the stubborn clouds parted, we smelled a bold whiff of something like cat pee. As soon as our nostrils made us suspicious, we fell silent. Then, we heard a few twigs snap and RACED back up the stairs to our safe cabin deck, saving the jaguar spotting for another night. Debriefing with Dr. Evans this morning, we learned that he also heard a deeep mammal exhale right outside of his room around that time.

With coffee and tea in hand, sitting around the picnic tables on the deck, we listened to our reliable grackle friend (he’s there all day, every day) squawk and put on a scene for the ladies. Down on the grass, Lonesome George (a flamboyant, wild turkey, who doesn’t mind being alone so that all eyes are on him) was roaming around. He’s extra flashy with an undercoat of black and white checkered feathers, some iridescence on his top coat, and quite a few more patterns. Also, we found a bunch of turkey feathers in a spot along the trail and think a jaguar got to his friend.

(Lonesome George – 05/20/25)

Today we would be designing and executing another research project, this time, using our pee for an experimental treatment. Often, most of the rainforest’s nitrogen is stored near the forest floor in the decomposing leaf litter and nitrogen-fixing bacteria (organisms that live in the soil and convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms usable by plants). As you climb higher, nitrogen becomes harder to come by. Therefore, plant-available nitrogen should be more available and more evenly distributed on the forest floor than in the canopy, where occasional, limited nitrogen sources would be more concentrated around the few sources and less common. To test this, we set up pitfall traps, which were just tubes filled halfway with liquid, camouflaged so that insects would stumble in and stay trapped. We would compare the differences in species richness (the number of species), species abundance (the total number of species), and total biomass in the treatments. To make the control and experimental treatment, we filled tubes with water (no nitrogen) and pee (yes nitrogen) hidden in the forest floor (in the soil) and on tree trunks. We peed in tubes, put on our boots, and headed out for the rainforest.

(Tree Pee Tubes – 5/19/25)

Before we headed out, we were given 2 pieces of advice for the field:

Dr. Evans: “Make sure you guys bring your childlike whimsy with you.”
Dr. Solomon: “Watch out for killer ants.”

About the killer ants, apparently not too long ago (around the 90s), scientists decided to breed the European honey bees (with low honey production and low agressiveness) with African Honey Bees (with high honey production and high agressiveness) with the hopes of creating a high honey and low agressiveness phenotypic combination and a winning bee vareity for market honey production. Instead, they created the opposite–a low-honey, high-aggressiveness bee. Not only is this meany more aggressive, but it also has a lower threshold (it will react with less disturbance/irritation) for sending a warning call back to the hive to bring the other bees over. So, contact with one hybrid bee could summon the killer bees. 6 of these hybrids (specifically queen bees) escaped the lab, and now, 30ish years later, they’re taking over the rainforests.

While setting our traps, we stopped to chat about some more insects that can do some damage. We walked on top of this humongous leaf-cutter ant hill (literally hill-sized), and some of the pinky-sized, pinch-armed soldier ants (the specialized protectors of the colony) came out to greet us. One of us turned around and saw a soldier making its way up Ian’s back. While everyone was panicking and working together to whack it off, Dr. Solomon popped by and said, “So guys, that was a great example of social grouping in primates. All you have to do now is eat the ant.” Yep, classic Dr. Solomon. Learning by doing, ya know?

(Leaf-cutter Soldier – 05/19/25)

After this little morning project and a delicious lunch from our exceptional chef Angie (nothing can compare to the plantains here), we strategized for rainforest study 3, which did not involve urine, but rather catching crickets and ravaging ant colonies :(. There are these trees called Cecropia trees, which are layered with chambers like a “high-rise apartment complex” that mutually host Azteca ants. The ants protect the tree from predators, and the tree excretes sugary, nutritious meals for the ants in return.

DSCF1315 (Cecropia-ant Mutualism – 05/19/25)

In our project, we were examining how the presence of the ants changes the tree’s physical and chemical composition (specifically its defense systems) in its leaves. We would collect leaves from two Cecropia trees–one with ant symbionts and one without–and compare the strength and herbivory amounts of the leaves. We had a fancy penetrameter to measure the force it would take to break through a leaf, and Dyllan brought out her butterfly net so that we could catch some herbivorous insects to consume the leaves.

You know us, and we stopped many times during the search for Cecropia trees to poke sticks in freshly webbed-covered tarantula holes. When finally one popped out, the whole class exclaimed “OH!” and jumped back in unison. Also, did you know spider hairs are also irritating in addition to their venomous fangs? Their hairs are barbed and urticating, meaning they cause irritation and discomfort upon contact (https://enviroliteracy.org/animals/are-tarantulas-hair-poisonous/).

Today was a bug-heavy day, completed with a scorpion sighting in our classroom drawer. My takeaways: insects are very diverse, have a few defense tricks up their sleeves (their 6 or 8 sleeves), and are mind-boggingly complex. Tomorrow, we’re learning more about leaf-cutter ants, so stay tuned for more insect lore.

Lily 🙂

2022

Day 10: New Heights

June 22, 2022 Sophia Figueroa Leave a comment

This morning after breakfast, we created our camera trap experiment in which we are going to use fifteen motion cameras that will take photos over the next few days. We are going to try to identify the different predators and prey and see where they might be most abundant in the different areas of the foot trails, untouched forest, and the “paved” roads. We set out for a couple of hours before lunch to begin our camera set up, mainly putting up our five cameras for the road areas. After lunch, we then set out for the true hiking experience to put up the other 10 or so cameras. I was impressed with the amount of elevation that we gained throughout the hike, rubber boots adding to some of the difficulty when we had to go down hill (they are super important for protection against snakes and also great for the rain and puddles) but I think this is because mine could do with some extra traction but I still very much enjoyed the hike. The vegetation within the forest was unbelievable. I just feel like everything is magnified by 10x, it’s gorgeous. I saw huge Give and Take Palms, plenty of fish tail palms, huge Tillandsia utriculata (the same genus as the small airplants but this one can grow up to 60cm) in many of the tree canopies, and a lot of house plants that were obviously thriving more out here in the jungle than someone’s plant room: Philodendron radiatum, Philodendron hederaceum and a lot of Monstera spp. I also saw a lot of air-plants that were both on the tree at around eye level but also a few that had fallen to the ground because the branch that they were connected to had broken off. These were Tillandsia spp. but they all are so similar that I’m learning that deciphering the exact species is going to be more difficult than I expected. Along the way, we saw so many different butterflies, a huge cockroach, lots of cicada shells, leaf cutter ants, and even got to eat some termites. Since they were so small, it wasn’t scary to eat them – they mostly had a woody aftertaste to them but I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to find and eat them.

Tillandsia schiedeana (This grows on all of the large tree branches)

Red-Eyed (maybe also Morelet’s) Tree Frog eggs!

A wide angle selfie (of course) at the Bird Tower!

After we finished the elevation climb, we made it to the Bird Tower where we went up this questionably stable structure that had the most amazing outlook I have ever seen. You could see so much of the forest yet only understand that it is only a part of the whole thing, it was gorgeous. On the hike down from the top, we stopped at the smaller Mayan cave were we found some Mayan clay pottery shards and got to explore the room that had been built by building a wall into the natural constrictions of the cave. The stalactites were so impressive and I could have stared at them all day, but I’m excited for the cave we get to explore in a few days. As we were trying to pass the time, I have also learned so many riddles and I can’t wait to stump everyone one at home. On the way back down Dr. Solomon also pointed out some orchids but I couldn’t identify them because there were no flowers. However, pseudobulbs led us to believe that they were orchids. Our final stop was a ginormous leaf cutter ant mound that was about 6ft wide (at least). It is so cool to watch the Leaf Cutter ants all line up and create their foraging trails as they cut down the vegetation to bring into their home to cultivate the fungus that they eat the byproduct of. I’m starting to understand why Dr. Solomon loves ants so much. We also stopped by a wallows (in the dry season)/frog pond (in the wet season) and found a bunch of Red-eyed Tree Frog eggs on a hanging tree branch – super cool!

-Sophia

2022

Team Frog

June 20, 2022 ers10 Leave a comment

Every day here is one for the books, but today was especially special.

We started the morning with a surprise. We would be performing an experiment to measure the abundance of bugs in the canopy vs the forest floor, as well as how attracted they are to nutrients. We are going to take our data based on how many of the bugs fall into these “pitfall traps,” which is liquid in a vial that the bugs get stuck in. We had a water control vial, and a nutrients vial. But here’s the surprise-guess what we were using for nutrients? Our pee! It was definitely weird, but sometimes that’s what you have to do for science!

We then headed out to set up the pitfall traps. We each had four vials-two controls (water) and two nutrients (urine). We would put a water and a urine vial on a tree to catch bugs from up there, and then one of each buried up to the brim in the ground to catch the bugs from the forest floor. We spread out our vials, so each tree with a pitfall trap was about ten feet apart. Setting up the traps took up the rest of the morning, so we came back for lunch. Along the way I saw some crickets-there was a small brown cricket with beige legs in the leaf cover of the ground, and a dark brown cricket under a rock. We also saw a small jumping pit viper in the middle of the trail and an eyelash viper coiled on a log! The eyelash vipers are very elusive, so it was exciting to see one.

For the afternoon, we were focused on leaf cutter ant nests! We found a young (<1 year old) nest in the clearing by the research station. We dug next to the nest, and we came upon the chamber below the ground that contained the fungus garden! The leaf cutter ants bring the leaves they cut up to the fungus garden to feed, it, and it in return grows nutrient-rich so the ants can feed upon it. Professor Solomon scooped out some of the fungus and found the queen! She was huge-almost the size of my thumb! After we took a look at her, we put her back and sealed the nest.

We then went to look at a bigger nest, to see how it was different. We were digging in one spot, but no ants were coming out. The trip was not fruitless, in fact quite the opposite! We found a Mexican burrowing frog, which is usually hard to come by because they live underground.

We then moved on to another nest, which had no frogs, but was teeming with ants. We saw that there were more types of worker ants, and that the fungus garden chamber was bigger. I caught one of the biggest ants-the soldier ant, which is specialized to protect the colony. I wanted to see how strong she was, so I let her bite me, and her long, sharp mandibles drew blood even through a callous! The nest was really cool to look at, but we sealed it up and moved on.

We had to do a bunch of presentations before dinner, but afterwards, we went on a night hike! We walked to the Frog Pond, a dried-up pond where we had seen red-eyed tree frog eggs the day before. Tonight, we saw two Morelet’s tree frogs, which are critically endangered! We also saw a ton of northern cat eye snakes, one of which we watched feed upon the tree frog eggs ☹ The rest of the snakes were in the canopy, which brought the day’s snake count up to nine.

top ten pictures taken before disaster (pic cred: Sophia)

I also saw some cool orthoptera! There was a giant grasshopper atop a palm frond, with beige and brown coloring. It was really high up, so it was difficult to identify. There was also two different medium sized brown orthopterans-one was sitting atop a leaf, and one was hanging out with the Morelet’s tree frog! The one on the ground sort of looked like the white kneed king cricket, and the other like a brown dead leaf katydid, but it was hard to tell. There were also some tiny crickets, but I didn’t get a good look at any of them.

possible white kneed king cricket with the Morelet’s tree frog! a taxa crossover episode if you will

The rain forest has been super cool, and so far I have managed not to get as many bug bites as I did at Glover’s Reef. I will keep you all updated about what we get up to tomorrow!

-Elena

2022

D-11 The queen and the toad

June 20, 2022 Maggy Leave a comment

Hello everyone!

Today, during the first half of the day, we went out for a second experiment at the rainforest. We were first told that for this experiment we would use pee. Hearing this I began to mentally prepare myself to literally pee in the rainforest, thankfully our instructors had other plans in mind. Their plan was much more simple, it involved us taking a small flask and peeing into it in the restroom, then planting it in the floor of the rainforest, and placing another flask of pee on the trunk of the tree. By doing this we would be able to estimate the biomass of arthropods in the Chiquibul (at least in the trees we sample!) The use of pee would help us see in what region, whether trees or the ground, arthropods sought out nutrient rich material. This time around our trekking was made really interesting by several sightings! We saw two snakes, a jumping pit viper and an eyelash viper. After placing our containers, we went back to LCRS to get lunch, which was delicious!

After lunch we all headed out again, yet this time our aim was very different, we were all seeking leaf-cutter ant hills! We eventually found one that was about a year old. Using a small shovel we reached the inner chamber of the nest where the fungi is harvested. We even found the queen!

Then we went to inspect a much larger ant hill, yet no ants came out, instead we found a Mexican burrowing toad!

We released the toad and continued our search for a hill!

At the first ant hill I saw one of my taxa, a western honey bee. It became attracted to my backpack and begun hovering around it. I’m not completely sure what attracted it, but I have a theory that it was the Gatorade in one of my bottles. I didn’t get a good photo of the honey bee, yet throughout the day I saw a few others that I was able to photograph! For example, here is a bumblebee that I saw!

And here is a photo of a type of stingless bee not found on my taxon sheet!

2019

14/05/19 We Have Anchored Down in Belize

May 14, 2019 erd5 Leave a comment

[6:00am] We were up before the sun, gathered at Rice University’s Valhalla eager to depart. In a series of unfortunate circumstances, we had tardy departures twice (from Rice University to IAH, then from IAH to Belize), but remained on schedule! Finally at around 12:30pm (Belize time—an hour behind Houston’s), we anchored down in Belize.

The remainder of the day was full of travels. We encountered several wildfires—a sure indicator of the dry season! At one particular point, the van was enveloped by a thick cloud of smoke from a roadside wildfire. For lunch, I had soursop juice, stewed pork with rice and beans (not beans and rice—they’re different!) At the next stop, grocery store, I stocked up on plantain chips. (Enjoying the local cuisine!)

After a long trip, we arrived at Crystal Paradise Ecolodge, where there is an abundance of friendly stray dogs and fun. A few classmates and I plus Scott and Amanda walked down to the river to swim and swing for about an hour before dinner until the light started to fade. We encountered no alligators, thankfully, but identified leaf-cutter ants, ants from the genus Ectatomma, and an agouti (no Lepidoptera today!)

2017

Day 12: Social Interactions (5/27/2017)

June 2, 2017 mjf10 Leave a comment

I wake up in the middle of the night and step outside to something I have never felt before. It is the rainforest night. The air is rich with animal sounds. The sky is pitch black but adorned with countless stars, creating the illusion of a deep indigo-gray. Heartbeats of lighting illuminate the sky, but there is no rain. An unmatched sense of awe comes over me, something I could only feel being alone before nature’s grandeur.

Many hours later, my class and I are in the forest. Tall kapok trees (Ceiba pentandra) along the path form islets of intense shade, and yellow prickly trees (Zanthozylum spp.) sporadically flank the path with yellow-brown adornments. Some of the yellow prickly plants were speckled with tiny crawling ants. These leaf-cutter ants chisel and delivery circular sheets of leafs to their colonies, advanced eusocial communities that mature over time.

We say three ant colonies: one year old, four years old, and ten years old. Similar to an individual organism, the colonies aged, growing larger and more advanced with time. Leaf-cutter ants sustain by cultivating fungus on leaf pieces concealed in underground chambers, and thus colonies must have increasing number of chambers to grow enough food to feed their growing numbers. With time, colonies supported more types of workers and had longer, deeper, and wider tunnels.

Late in the afternoon, I saw five scarlet macaws (Ara macao) fly across the sky in unison. Although macaws lack a complex social structure like leaf-cutter ants, they still cluster for social interaction and increased protection from predators.

It is interesting how human social interactions relate to those of other organisms. Some people have clearly defined senses of duty, like worker ants chiseling leaves for their colonies. Some exhibit altruism, like a scarlet macaw rearing her chicks. Even if there is no evolutionary relationship between the social interactions of humans and other animals, it is interesting to see the common elements.

However, sometimes it’s preferred to forgo my social role and be alone. The sky is much more powerful that way.

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Random Drug Test Day (Day 12)

June 1, 2017 skg5 Leave a comment

Today we experienced Scott F. Solomon in his true element: digging up leaf-cutter ant colonies. We went to three different-aged colonies to dig in to and see their tunnels and fungal gardens. With his tiny shovel and stolen spoon, Dr. Solomon pulled out two of the three colonies’ fungi. It was cool to see how complex the colonies can be and how their complexity increased with age (a single queen can keep her colony growing for 25 years!), but being that close to so many ants was a bit unpleasant.

The other main thing we did today was set up an experiment to test abundances of arthropods and nutrient availability on the forest floor versus in the canopy. This involved each of us filling two viles with our pee and two with water and then tying half to trees and burying half in the ground. Tomorrow we are going to examine the arthropods that fell into the viles.

The day after tomorrow is when we are going to have to go and retrieve our camera traps. I’m excited to see the pictures they’ve taken, but I’m not looking forward to the hiking it will involve. Although the hiking yesterday felt fine, the minimal hiking we did today was pretty painful and quite laborious because I cut my foot on a conch at Glover’s a little over a week ago. As a reminder of our time on Middle Caye, four pieces of shell came out of the cut today. I’m hoping that was the last of it (spoiler: it wasn’t) and that it won’t be as painful in the coming days.

We spent not much time in the woods today, so I did not see any Orthoptera. However, I’m hoping we’ll find lots in the viles. The highlight of today was the Scarlet Macaws we saw. Two of them flew over us and then stopped in a tree nearby. It was a hard to get a picture that did them or their colorful plumage justice, but I don’t think it’s something I will ever forget.