Entomology, midges, and color.

Being a biologist means appreciating everything. 

Getting distracted by -everything-. 

Being endlessly curious and endlessly fascinated. 

This trip is certainly driving those tenets of field biology home for me. Everything we -do- (okay, minus some plant taxonomy) seems captivating: and the people that I find myself with are equally as enthralled. As equally quirky. 

Like this fellow who gave us a tour of the Monteverde Butterfly Garden. 

How can I not instantly like someone who started a business on the premise of "luring people in" with a butterfly facade and then preaching to them about misconceptions against cockroaches and spiders?

We went as a group for insect diversity day and saw some pretty awesome buggies. 

And got some pretty unexpected laughs. This guy was full of it. 

"These caterpillars are like fourteen-year-old boys: mouths with big sacs attached to them."

He showed us some pretty awesome Harry Potter Spiders, and how scorpions glow under blacklights. 

Tarantulas, jewel scarab beetles of solid silver, gold and copper: butterflies emerging from chrysalises. 

All of us squealing and smiling, bug-eyed (haaaa). 

There was the camouflage table. 

With a ton of walking sticks. There was one that was almost, if not more than a foot long. 

They had an impressive collection. And Mr.Bug Man had even caught some live velvet worms, which are super rare and equally as adorable. 

He had some fun butterfly lore to share.

(Sweet chrysalis.)

Butterfly lore like these "88" butterflies: when locals see them, they are guaranteed a win if they run to the nearest corner and buy lottery ticket number 88. Amazing wing patterns. 

Another tidbit was about the Aztecs, who thought that butterflies were the souls of their ancestors.
Every Aztec household kept a butterfly plant close for that reason, and there were certain codes of conduct for people around the plant. Mmmm butterflies. 

There were three gardens at the center: representing three different elevations. The lowest elevation garden was full of owl butterflies and blue morphos, and our guide (a previous CIEE student spending a year in Costa Rica after graduation!!) told us that they referred to it as the "party garden" because of the fermented fruit that comprises the majority of the butterflies' diet.  

The party garden had some pretty awesome, victreebel-like flowers called Dutchman's Pipes, too.  

Amber kissing a butterfly! 

This one was called a Julia. They're everywhere in Monteverde. 

Maricela!

Glass-winged butterflies exhibit LEKKING behavior. How cool is that?! Biologists??

There were one or two familiar faces. 

Cute. 

They had an entire, glass-covered leaf cutter ant colony that we could examine at our leisure. 

After ecology last year, I really wish that I had had ant farms as a kid. For all you California argentine-ant-dorm-invader sufferers...protect your big, native ants. Did you know that a bunch of ant species BURY THEIR DEAD? Crazy, right? These guys are so cool. 

And I just thought this was great. The vans we took to and from the garden had some sweet light settings. 

So all the bug stuff was Thursday. For the majority of yesterday and today, we've all been conducting field projects and gearing up for a presentation -on- the data we collected yesterday that's worth ten percent of our grade. Pretty legit. My project was on leaf galls in melastomataceae leaves. Which was not nearly as interesting as my friend and peer Janessa's sense of style. I love this girl. 

I couldn't help but take pictures of her water bottle. It's a tiny snapshot of the whole: this girl really knows how to get creative with color. She's got a number of fantastic tye-dye dresses and shirts, wears rings on every finger, necklaces, anklets, bracelets--stone, glass, metal, leather, ceramic, plastic, hemp: you name it, she's wearing it. And it all fits, all the time. She's a surprise every morning. Looking at whatever she's wearing makes me want to run to the nearest craft box and go to town. 

So that's that! And now there's another Saturday night waiting for me. 

Salsa maybe, night hike and movie definitely. 

Janessa ordered me to look at the fortune she had taped to the base of her bottle yesterday during our study, and reminded me yet again why I love young, crazy conservation biologists; and why I love counting myself among them. Optimism, passion, and appreciation really count for something here. People really give you a lot of respect for your spunk, your knowledge, and of course the quirk that drives you to spend hours picking apart rotting bark for beetle larvae. 

Write soon! We only have until Thursday of next week here: after that we'll be on the Caribbean slope, backpacking the days away. Can't wait. 

Cheers!