Day Three

After an early breakfast, it was back to photographing the rest of the caterpillars from the day before, and we were still collecting more specimens each day. After taking pictures for a while, the team split up between staying back at the ambient lab and going back out into the field. I headed into the field where we went to look for more caterpillars at a specially designated area of the forest where the survey sites were located. The survey sites were large plots of land where vegetation is grown and then periodically cut down as a way of "resetting" the plant growth in the area. This is done after a set number of years as a way of promoting biodiversity and to keep the forest healthy. The sites we had been shown had been growing out for a few years now, and many caterpillars where found in these areas.

After lunch, we headed back out into the field to collect more caterpillars, but this time the method was a little different. After searching for them primarily on piper plants for the first few days, it was time to start collecting samples from selaginella, a ground-cover plant. In order to have a more uniform set of data it was important that we collected as many caterpillars that we could from these plants as well as pipers, to help determine which host plants different species of caterpillars prefer, as this may have an effect on rates of parasitism as well.