June 27- Spider Monkeys and Aggressive Ants

As you may remember from my previous post, we had quite the storm last week that knocked down a lot of trees on the island.  One of those trees fell with a V in its branches around one of my study nests- the site itself is okay, but I have to climb through a fallen tree to get to it.  Some of you may guess where this is heading.  I made it through most of it despite the fact that it was a slippery, shifting, fallen tree.  And then, when I was almost through, my foot caught on a branch and my shoulder hit the Azteca nest as I stumbled.

Azteca are extremely aggressive, especially when anything comes near their colony.  Unsurprisingly, they were not happy to be disturbed.  I leapt away as quickly as I could, but I already had thousands of ants all over me.  One Azteca bite is annoying, but not too painful.  Dozens of simultaneous bites as hundreds of ants go down your shirt, up your neck, and into your hair is a different story.  I ended up having to rip off my shirt and throw it over a tree, and then spend the next fifteen minutes removing angry ants before I could continue.  My ant-infested  backpack was a lost cause- I carried it on a stick until I reached a fork in the trail that I knew I would pass on my way back, and left it on a tree.  Luckily (or unluckily) we got a major rainstorm that morning- it soaked me, but removed most of the ants from the pack by the time I came back for it.  I was quite the sight when I finally limped back into camp an hour late, soaking wet, covered in mud, and carrying my backpack as far from my body as possible.  

One highlight of that day- I saw an anteater!  I was delighted- it was definitely on my list of things that I wanted to see this summer, but they can be difficult to spot since they are arboreal and nocturnal.  I got lucky, and saw it as it was climbing into a tree to sleep.  One bright spot from my ant-related delay!  My camera was still sitting in the ant-infested backpack, but I ran back up the trail to get it.  I also had some amazing spider monkey sightings the day before.