Patrick's Blog

 Hi, my name is Patrick Crawford. I am an incoming senior at Trinity High School. Today the group started to dive more into the lives of the ants. We observed both Atta Cephalotes and Atta Colombica; the two species of leafcutter ants that live in Costa Rica. After watching our guides, Alan and Ibrahim, teach us about the Atta Cephalotes, we then learned how to dig up our own colony in search of the fungus the ants care for and eat. Many of the groups were able to dig up both the fungus and the queen. After eating lunch, we traveled to the local village and learned about the women who care for butterflies. The ladies there raise the butterflies from the egg all the way to the adult form. We stopped in a shop in the village for snacks and also purchased bracelets that helped the families that made them. We went back to the lab to analyze the data from our bacteria lab and then made environments for our ant samples. The last half of the group went on the night hike while the others had the night off. We'll see you all tomorrow!