Summer Visit to El Eden Ecological Reserve

I was one of a group of teachers that got to spend a week at the El Eden Ecological Reserve in Mexico this past August. While at the field station we assisted in ongoing research to study the impact of recent hurricanes on the biodiversity of the area. The weather was hot and, since we were there during the rainy season, damp.

We saw a great variety of plants, animals, and other organisms. Among other things, we had army ants march through our palapa one evening. It was an amazing sight to see hundreds of thousands of ants flowing through the building and clearing out just about all the small, living things in it. However, sometimes you only get to see trace evidence of what is there. The picture shows me preparing to make a cast of a margay’s paw print.