It's 6:30 p.m., and the dinner table is abuzz with chatter. The 22 scientists who are currently calling Barro Colorado Island (B.C.I.) home are talking about what they've accomplished today. I grab a seat across from one of the members of the bee team, Erin, as she excitedly shows off pictures of one of the bugs she found in the field.
"They're called velvet worms," she squeals. I think it's cute, but I'm nowhere near as thrilled as she is.
Erin is one of many entomologists, or bug researchers, on the island. She spends half of her days in the field, looking for sticks with tiny holes bored into them so she can collect specimens, since that's where the type of solitary bee she's studying lives. The other half of her days is spent testing and dissecting these specimens. Bees are so small that I didn't even know you could dissect them! That's what Erin does, though! Under a microscope, she cuts the bees open so she can have a look at their insides, which helps her answer one of her research questions.
Other entomologists on the island study and collect katydids (different sorts of crickets). The scientists on the katydid team have a lot of questions about these bugs that they would like to answer during their time on B.C.I.
