So to recap last week’s post, we got through our preliminary study of camera traps. Now I have a new partner, and we have combined our research to form some fun science questions. We will be looking at sloths and anteaters and their relationship to Cecropia trees and Aztec ants. We will get to use the camera traps to observe the anteaters, and we will use line transects to observe the sloths and Aztec ants. We are pretty excited because we are at a new location, Las Cruces, which has cooler weather and a bunch of different land types for study. We will also have more time to actually complete a full study (two weeks) compared to the one week intervals we have had at our last two locations.
I’m not sure how my classmates feel, but I think it is exciting because this will be the first time we have developed a research question on our own and will be going out into the field like real scientists with little guidance to find out the answers to these questions we are interested in. Supposedly these last two week go by quickly, but I hope that’s not the case because one thing that has been consistent between each destination is the exceptional food. To be honest, the food was my primary concern when coming to Costa Rica, but it turned out to be the best part of the whole trip. So the next two weeks will be traveling out into the jungle to conduct our research so hopefully by the next post we might have some answers. Side note: it’s cool to say that you’re going out into the jungle, smiley face.