Walking on an unfamiliar city street, do you ever feel as though someone is looking at you, with eyes that are curious, desirous, suspicious, or otherwise? The feeling can be unsettling, but is a pale comparison to walking in a forest. The natural world is also full of eyes, but these eyes are hungry. Tennyson…

Sometimes ecologists don’t look like they’re working very hard. I had a day where the major accomplishment was collecting three leaves from the forest. But what if I told you that each leaf was thirty-four feet long? The scourge of our research project is the giant Attalea butyracea. We are measuring the average area of…

It was a sunny morning late last week, and I had just ducked under a branch to reach our next transect. Standing up straight, I had a sudden feeling that there was something very large hanging off the back of my shirt, and walking up towards my neck. So I called over a friend on…

The rhythm of the forest changes as dusk approaches. The hot exhaustion of the late afternoon dissipates, and the forest comes alive again, loudening with the calls of birds and monkeys. A few mammals like the tamandua (ant-eater) and ocelot may make a brief appearance, and many insects begin to seek refuge for the night.…