Army ant cleaning crew

A little while back, army ants came through the lab clearing and made their way through all the rooms in both the old and new labs. These ants are pretty amazing -- they just appear one day in a steady stream of antiness and go everywhere in search of insects and other food. Anything that crosses their path gets swarmed and devoured...even HUMANS!! No, no, I am kidding, but these ants do give really painful stings so you need to be careful around them. This swarm actually crawled up a wall and attacked a wasp nest under an eave. The wasps had no chance and the ants ate all the larvae in the nest while the adult wasps circled the swarm helplessly.
Army ants are almost constantly on the move, but make temporary "nests" called bivouacs. The bivouac looks like a termite nest (a large brown blob on a tree/vine/liana) but is comprised solely of ants -- a living nest. These ants had their bivouac about 15 meters behind the lab buildings. I took a couple of pictures, but didn't want to get too close -- you also can't breathe on these guys because it makes them very mad and more likely to attack and sting you. The bivouac I saw was approximately 2 meters tall!
Although they may seem scary, these ants are really great at cleaning all the dead/live insects out of houses and offices. I let them do their work in my office (I left for a couple of hours) and hopefully they got rid of all the smaller ants and roaches for me!

Salchichita: The Return

Yay, the little weiner dog from the rain forest will soon be returning to La Selva from the big city! She went to live there about a month ago because she was getting into too many fights with animals here (porcupines, monkeys, anteaters...the list goes on) and she was getting hurt. Apparently the people taking care of her in the city don't really like her (!!--how can that be?!) and want to get rid of her. Carlos and I talked with the owner and said that we would gladly take care of her and make her an in-house puppy so that she can't fight with rain forest animals that might eat her. The owner agreed that we could have her and she might be here again in a couple of weeks! We will be taking her back to Florida with us too and I think that she will really like it there. She is already bilingual so she will fit right in. Salchi is such a nice dog and I think she will really like living with us. I will start looking up what shots and paperwork she needs to come back to the U.S. with us but from what I hear, this is not too difficult. This is really nice and exciting news!

Birthday week 'o fun

My mom and her friend Judy were here at La Selva from last Tuesday and they just left yesterday morning. It was really fun having them here to see the rain forest and all the little animals therein. We had a good time wandering the trails in secondary and primary forest and we saw a lot of nice animals (monkeys, poison dart frogs, owls, agoutis, squirrels, trogons) and best of all...no snakes!



My birthday was on Saturday and after breakfast, we went back to the house where mom and Judy were staying and opened presents--I got lots of great stuff: DVDs (X-Files, My Neighbor Totoro from Carlos), books (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Cute Book), a game for my little pink Nintendo DS Lite, and tons of other cool stuff! Since it was raining pretty hard that morning, mom, Judy, and I stayed inside reading, watching DVDs, and making pies (peaches and cream cheesecake--my favorite). I made a little felt bear from The Cute Book which has patterns, cute pictures, and descriptions (fun Japanese translations) for different critters you can make: from bear and fish to bad guy and kidnapper--what a weird book! We had a little party that night with my friends on station and we all ate delicious cake and snacks.


Mom and Judy left yesterday after about a week of rain forest fun and now they are back in Washington where there is rain but definitely not as much as there is here!

Mom's coming soon!

Not much fun stuff to blog about this week. This morning I saw a peccary wallowing in some mud--it was really cute. He was snorting around under the water's surface (I think he was eating worms or some other invertebrates) and blowing bubbles. It was too funny, but by the time I ran back to get my camera, the muddy little piggy was gone. Well, that was the higlight of my morning!

My mom is coming down here for a visit very soon--I am really excited! This will be her first time in Costa Rica (and Central America) and I have a lot of fun things planned. She will arrive on Tuesday afternoon with her friend Judy and I will meet them at the airport. From there, we will come to La Selva and the adventure begins. I am planning on taking my mom on a lot of nice walks and tours throughout the forest. I also want to take her on a boat trip down the Rio Puerto Viejo (that runs through the La Selva reserve) and on one or two night hikes to see nocturnal animals. Mom will only be here from the 11th to the 16th, but we will be able to celebrate my birthday and bake my favorite birthday cake--peaches and cream cheesecake! My dad isn't able to come on the trip because of work and (even more importantly) animal baby-sitting duties! Oh those crazy critters!

A visit from Jane Goodall

Yesterday, Jane Goodall (of National Geographic and chimp behavioral biology fame) visited the station. It was really amazing. She met with the researchers after lunch and gave a short talk about her current conservation efforts and the programs she is endorsing/running. It was really great to meet one of my childhood heroes and to hear her speak was awesome--she is very charismatic and passionate about what she does. She shared some nice personal stories about her life and her path in the field of behavioral biology. The best part was when she opened her talk by imitating the chimpanzee greeting call--this is apparently something she does to every group she meets! I will upload some pictures later...what a cool experience!