PLEASE double click on the images to see them more clearly. (by the way - posting a blog with images is a nightmare - nothing goes where you want it to go ~ although i'm probably doing something wrong)


The rainforest is a crazy place and mecca for a student of biology. Please excuse the heavy biology leanings of this post, but i just can't help it. The rainforest is amazing.

It is important to note that Sharon and I had a unique experience. We were able to visit a place unavailable to most. We went to a place called the Tiputini Biodiversity Station. As Sharon has already told you, it is seated deep in the Ecuadorian rain forest - one of the most remote places in the amazon basin. This is a place reserved primarily for researchers. Although our high school has been admitted a visit, we are the exception and the only students that have an in. It is truly in the middle of nowhere. This is a magical place. There are a great number of species yet to be identified - in fact an overwhelming number. And every time I looked at some crazy beetle or other insect, that realization screamed through my brain.

Above is a good example of coevolution - albeit a well know one (although i never thought i would see this in person). This is a leaf mantid - a product of extreme pressure and selection. Its back looks just like a leaf.

Nutrients are recycled like mad in the rain forest – mostly by the fungi – it’s for this reason that when people slash the forests to farm, they are wildly unsuccessful – unlike temperate deciduous forests, there is no nutrient store in the ground – there is no humus. The nutrients in a rain forest rarely go below 5 cm into the soil – it’s all just recycled and turned into a new plant or animal too fast.

The diversity and specialization in the rainforest has yet to be adequately explained. Competition forces species into crazy and unique niches and relationships, but the patterns

(mainly geographic isolation / separation of populations of the same species) that typically lead to the creation of new species are rare. This katydid (or whatever it is) has a fungus growing on it. Although this fungus is undoubtedly parasitic to some degree, the benefits outweigh the gains. More often than not, when this little bugger is attacked by a bird, the bird gets a big beak full of fungus. The fungal organism continues to thrive on the hind parts of the insect and the insect is spared. In the rain forest there is a fine line between mutualistic symbiosis and parasitism.

Conga ants are really scary. If you get bitten by one it’s straight to the hospital for you. I was watching this leaf filled with caterpillars.

I returned a day later to find a conga ant ready to make a meal of these guys. Caterpillars are big bags of nutrients. Conga ants are unique in that they tend to work alone, but of course for the colony. I watched this play out for a while and this ant never went out to find comrades. But he certainly took home quite a booty. The orange “horns” that you see coming out of the caterpillars’ heads put out quite an odor. I could smell the strong odor and it was brutal. I don’t think you can see it in the pictures, but the ant after every mini battle had to retreat and clean himself. His front 2 legs were sticky with orange toxins. The specializations, fierce competition and billions of years of evolution have lead to the development of a huge number of complex chemicals. In plants, these are referred to as secondary compounds. These are the molecules that some
pharmaceutical companies are looking to for cures to many diseases.

Eventually he took two of the caterpillars down. He handily cho

pped one into pieces and took the head back to the colony.