Daily Blog Entry 1:

We are finally here in Belize! I have already had three encounters with ants and I do not really know what they are. I spent quite a while working on my taxon ID card and researching ants, so it is humbling to know that in my first hour in the Belizian nature, I have had three encounters with ants and I was unable to identify all of them. But before we get to the ants, quick debrief of what we did today: We left Hobby at 1:40 and landed a few hours later at Belize City. Claire’s father was the pilot, which was very nifty. Edward, the friendly driver, drove us to a convenient store and then Crystal Paradise Ecolodge, which took around 4-5 hours. We then moved our belongings into the lodge (which is where I saw the first two ants) and had dinner at the lodge (which is where I saw the last group of ants).

All three ants that I encountered were probably of the same genus. They were all about 1-1.5 cm in length, thinner thorax than head and abdomen, no visibly large mandibles but a very noticeable elbowed antennae. I took a picture of the first ant and that had a white/shiny/yellow band around its abdomen. Scott said that those were Ponerine ants that can give very painful stings. Thankfully, I did not touch it. The second type was very large and did not have the band around its abdomen. I think Scott also said they were Ponerine ants as well. The third type was in a group were feeding on a beetle, and I think they are Ponerine ants because they look very similar to the second ones. 

I think the last two ants were of the same species. I never realised how omnipresent ants are and how little I know about them – this will be a very difficult week trying to identify them. I took pictures of the first and the third ant type I saw. Unfortunately, my MacBook does not have any portals to insert an SD card, so uploading photos will be a hassle.

I hope to be able to identify those ants later and get a better understanding of how to identify ants. (Also quick shout out to Scott for being the Ant man and for helping me to loosely identify the ants).