Dispatches From The Field

20 July, 2003 -- Ted Gilliland

I am in the thick of my part of our research right now. I have finished the field component of my part of our work in the forest (A.K.A. the fun stuff) and I am now separating and analyzing what we have collected. I have to carefully search through the samples, watching for even the tiniest of insects (even beetles and flies under a millimeter long). After all insects have been separated, we then pin the insects. Pinning is a long arduous task, but is an art in its own right. There is something about a well-organized, nicely trimmed insect collection that just makes an entomologist’s eye twinkle.

The next step is the identification of my specimens. The goal of this part of our research is to examine if small fragments of forest retain the healthy insect diversity held within large tracts of forest, which means we must identify the insects in each area in order to compare them. The identificaion of spciemens is another long and arduous task, which will probably take a week or two of twelve-hour workdays. The abundance of minute insects in my samples was a problem I did not foresee, but hopefully the three-pound microscope that lugged over here from the other side of the planet will help to ameliorate that. It is challenging to stay in one place and work all day long when you’re in such a dynamic and interesting country, but I get out for a cold Coca-Cola occasionally and I still haven’t missed a single market day in the village.

-Ted Gilliland