La Selva Day Two: Ants Marching
The howler monkeys woke me up at 4:30 am this morning…
After breakfast, Brett and I hiked the La Selva property. Most of the trails are paved with concrete, so most of this was safe and even walking. We hiked most of the morning in old growth rainforest. Reading about the density and diversity of tropical rainforest life in a textbook just does not come close to doing the real deal justice.
Although we spotted Great Green Macaws, Crested Guan, Blue Morpho butterfly, agouti, collared pecarry, collared anteater, Central America whiptail lizard and the Strawberry or Blue Jeans dart frog, I think my favorite sighting were the leaf-cutter ants. We saw millions upon millions of these little guys at work. Here is a picture of Brett pointing out a very obvious leaf-cutter ant trail winding through the grounds:
Ant trail at La Selva
Once we got into the rainforest, they were everywhere. I can’t believe there are any trees left as fast as they seem to be working. Here is a short video clip (10 sec) that I filmed of leaf-cutter ants at work:
