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Winding down, gearing up August 26, 2014

Getting ready to leave Palo Verde is always a drawn-out process. T minus four weeks, we stopped searching for new caterpillars. T minus three weeks, all the caterpillars were being reared in the lab and I applied for the permit to export my samples. T minus two weeks, we put the plant aspects of the project into high gear, collecting specimens to identify and measuring leaf traits that might be important to the caterpillars, like leaf size and thickness. T minus one week, I started getting everything ready to go.

Despite that, the last day or so before I left Palo Verde was a scramble. I always want to leave everything to do with the caterpillars until the last possible minute, just in case something interesting happens. I felt somewhat vindicated when parasitoids emerged from one of the caterpillars:

Hymenoptera parasitoid pupae on the body of a Cephis aelius caterpillar (Hesperiidae)

Unfortunately, waiting that long meant I didn’t finish my data collection until 12:30AM the night before I left, with more packing to do in the morning. Even worse, I’d put off working on the talk I was giving at the University of Costa Rica in the hopes that I might have time to analyze and report some of this season’s results. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

Unfortunately, waiting that long meant I didn’t finish my data collection until 12:30AM the night before I left, with more packing to do in the morning. Even worse, I’d put off working on the talk I was giving at the University of Costa Rica in the hopes that I might have time to analyze and report some of this season’s results. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.