Costa Rica Trip Day 7, Posted by Sara Warren and Lilly Meekin

Hi everybody! Today, we had to get up half an hour earlier for breakfast, which you wouldn't think would make much of a difference, but half of the people didn't show up. Then we worked on our group projects until 11:00, and then we split up into Lexington Catholic and Trinity. The Trinity boys stayed at Finca La Anita for lunch at 11:30 and LC split into 4 cars to go to a place called Sensoria. We drove up a very treacherous road and stopped for sandwiches, chips, and these delicious, sweet, croissant, caramelish things.  We saw a dinosaur park on the side of the road, and then we arrived at Sensoria. We went through a trail composed entirely of stairs to get to an amazing waterfall, a freezing river, and a hot spring. While we were freezing our butts off in the river someone thought they saw a snake coming over the waterfall, which resulted in lots of screaming and scrambling trying to get back to shore. It turned out to be a log, but needless to say, no one got back in.  Then it started pouring rain, and by the time we got to the hot spring we were so wet that some of us just kept our socks on while we swam.  There was a chicken fight with Mr. Dorsett and Peter vs. Jacob and Travis... I think you can guess who won.  When we finally got back to the main house we got cookies, coffee, and juice (Fun Fact: the coffee cups match the stuff we have at home -Sara) while we watched a wildlife movie.  We came back and Oliva Bassetti, Sarah S.P., and Micky rode in the back of one truck, while Peter, Michaela, Cameron, and Travis rode in the bed of the other truck (Cameron got a second chance after he stood up in the back going up a hill which almost gave Mrs. Formisano a heart attack).  When we finally got back we were soaked to the bone and exhausted, but we just changed and ate dinner before going back to work on our projects more. Tomorrow we get to go horseback riding and zip lining! This has been amazing! Love you guys!
         - Sara Warren and Lilly Meekin

Nuptial Flight

Yesterday morning, students had the rare opportunity to witness the tail end of a nuptial flight of the Atta Cephalotes species of the leaf cutter ant.  Professor Pinto led an impromptu lecture to explain what happened.  Up to 20,000 ants flew out from each colony to participate in this mating ritual.  The nuptial flight is synchronized with the other colonies in the area so that queens will have the chance to mate with males from other colonies.  Queens are able to distinguish between males from her colony and ones from other colonies.  The queen chooses males from other colonies so that her offspring will benefit from genetic variation.  The sole function in life of the male participants in the nuptial flight is to mate with a queen.  The photo below shows dying males.  Most of the queens die after this ritual as well.  The successful queens survive by finding a piece of earth to dig into where she will lay her eggs and start her fungus garden.  The photo at the bottom is a hole dug by a successful queen.  She is going to have a rough go of it in this location since it is at the edge of a gravel parking lot.  The other queens dying in the parking lot were collected by our students to be used in their research.   

Males dying after the nuptial flight.

Hole started by a young queen.

   Young queens used for research.