Costa Rica is home to a large number and of beautiful and unique frog species. During our travels throughout many biological reserves, we were able to explore this diversity.

 

Throughout our three months here we have heard many dink frogs on our night hikes. These frogs make a very loud noise that sounds exactly like a “DINK!” but for as loud as they are they are actually very difficult to find. On one of our night hikes in the Veragua Rainforest we were privileged enough to see many dink frogs along the trails. The frogs are very small, have bumpy skin, and have a darker skin during the day that becomes pink or tan at night. One of our herpetologist guides said he had been studying frogs in the Veragua forest for years and saw 8 of the 12 dink frogs he had ever seen on our night hike.

 

 

Red eyed tree frogs are very well known because of their distinct coloration of green skin, huge bright red eyes, and oftentimes bright blue stomachs with yellow stripes along their sides and underbelly. When threatened, they crouch down so their bright blue underbelly and legs are covered up by their green sides and they close their eyes with a yellow patterned eyelid to cover up their bright red eyes. These frogs are endemic to Costa Rica so it was very exciting to be able to see so many throughout the different areas we traveled to, especially in the Veragua Frog Reserve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Veragua we also learned about a few of the research projects that the naturalists were overseeing, including a project with the tiger frogs. Tiger frogs have dark green bodies, bright orange underbellies and with orange and black stripes along their sides and legs. These frogs are endangered and their numbers are dramatically declining, so the researchers were studying their natural habitats to determine their main cause of death. They created artificial ponds around Veragua and found that 64% of their eggs are killed by predators. Of these deaths, 90% are from wasps and 7.5% are due to snakes. One other thing they found was that Tiger Frogs would often lift their abdomen to look like a snake as a means of defense.

 

Strawberry dart frogs are very small, have red bodies with black speckles and usually have blue rear legs. These frogs are excellent mothers. They lay their eggs in ponds and once hatched, carry their tadpoles on their back one by one into a little pool of water inside of bromeliad plants. The mother then returns to each bromeliad to feed the tadpoles unfertilized eggs until they grow into little froglets. The unfertilized eggs contain the compound that the frogs need to make poison, so these tadpoles can become poisonous as a line of defense in their bromeliads. This is different from other poisonous dart frogs which are only poisonous in their adult frog stage. All adult dart frogs obtain and maintain their poison levels by breaking down a compound in the insects that they eat. We saw many strawberry poison dart frogs in the frog sanctuary in Veragua, which was a large open space with plenty of plants. In La Selva we saw a few hopping around at the biological station and many at the chocolate farms, especially under some bromeliads near the shelter we made chocolate under. Our guide told us this was because there were mosquitos here eating the shells of the cocoa and that the frogs eat those mosquitos. Being able to travel across many different ecosystems allowed us to see and learn about a wide diversity of frogs in this country. These four species are only a subset of all of the different frogs we were fortunate enough to observe on this trip.

 

 

La Selva is both a biological station and ecotourism destination in the lowland tropical rainforest. The reserve has a large hanging bridge over the Puerto Viejo River separating the research station from the rest of the campus. There were also many smaller bridges over the smaller offshoots of the river that connected the extensive network of trails in the reserve, which we were able to hike and bike along during our time here.

 

The La Selva reserve has a wealth of animals that we hadn’t seen on our trip yet. During our night hikes we were able to see red eyed tree frogs, strawberry dart frogs, basilisks and caymans. Every time we stopped we had to check our feet because a huge line of leafcutter ants which bordered the trails and must have stretched for miles. In the daytime we were able to see peccaris on one side of the bridge and four Honduran bats that had picked a tent shaped leaf as their temporary home.

 

We started our stay here with a river raft tour. Within seconds of pushing off the shore we looked up and saw a two-toed sloth hanging perfectly from a branch over the river. This started our tour out on a great note as many of us had never seen a sloth before. We floated down the river at a very slow and relaxing pace, which allowed us to look for different animals and to take in the scenery of the canopy above and around us. On our tour we were able to see three different families of at least twenty howler monkeys up in the trees, many of which had young monkeys on their mothers’ backs or were hanging on a branch by their tail. Up above us massive iguanas were sunning on the high branches and around us kingfishers were standing on the fallen branches near our rafts. A colony of small bats was even perched on a log in the water and we were able to float up very close to them. Halfway through the tour we pulled up to the shore and ate a bunch of delicious fresh fruit that our tour guides surprised us with.In deeper parts of the river we were able to swim and float around and even jump off of a tall rock. After many hikes, this was a very interesting way to get a new and different perspective of the forest.

 

By Lucy Lewis

A couple nights after our return from a relaxing, four day break, we were treated with a visit from “Bat Man”, the local bat expert. For its size, Costa Rica has a greater diversity of bat species than any other country in the world, and over half of its species of mammals are bats, so it’s no wonder why Bat Man has spent a lot of time here. As we listened, I discovered that there is a lot more to learn about bats than I knew. First, bat species have a greater variety of diets tha

n I thought. There are aerial insectivores, which eat bugs flying through the air, gleaning insectivores, which eat bugs from substrate, frugivores, which eat fruit, nectarivores, which eat nectar, carnivores, which eat birds, lizards, rats, frogs and other small animals, piscivores, which eat fish, sanguinivores, which eat blood, and omnivores, which have some combination of these diets. Here in the tropics, many plant species depend on frugivorous bats and nectarivores as seed dispersers and pollinators. Fo

r example, many frugivorous bats in Costa Rica specialize on the fruit of the Piper plant genus, which has the recognizable, candle shaped inflorescences.

Bat species vary in their social units as much as they do in their diets. They can be solitary or live in colonies, and colonies vary widely in size and structure. Some colonies consist of all females with a single male or of all females and juveniles while others have a more equal male to female ratio. Similarly to birds, some species form leks, where a group of males gathers to display courtship behavior and attract females.

After dinner, we had the opportunity to get a good look at some bats that were caught on campus. Bat Man held them while we shined a light on them and looked as closely as we wanted. We also got to do this once on our trip to Veragua, but before I came to study in Costa Rica, I had never had a close up look at a bat sitting still. They were adorable!

Most of the bats that were caught were the same species of fruit bat, but we also saw one insectivore, two nectarivores and one other type of fruit bat called a yellow shouldered bat because the males secrete pheromones to communicate with potential mates, which turns the fur on their shoulders a yellowish color. The fruit bats all had tiny, sharp teeth suited to puncturing fruit. Although we weren’t able to see it, the species of nectarivore that we caught, which is only about 6 cm long, has about an 8 cm long tongue for reaching nectar deep in flowers!

By: Alizah Garvin

Prior to Independence Day we took the time to learn more about the history of Costa Rica. Columbus reached Costa Rica in 1502 and referred to this country as “Rich Coast” giving it its name. Costa Rica did not have a war of independence like other countries did but rather gained it as a result of other Central American countries fighting for independence. All of Central America gained its independence on September 15^th 1821. Since all of Central America gained independence at the same time a torch is ran through all the countries and it ends is Cartago, Costa Rica on September 14^th every year. In recent years Costa Rica has progressed giving indigenous peoples, women, and afro Caribbean populations the right to vote. The country has also nationalized its bank and abolished its army becoming a completely passive country. As a result of this the money that would have been put towards an army is now going towards education which has increased the literacy rates in Costa Rica.

One of the Independence day traditions is to make faroles which are small lantern made out of paper that usually national symbols. Since we are all ecology and biology students most of our faroles reflected a tropical species found here in Costa Rica. A few examples from students include a blue morpho butterfly, a red eyed tree frog, and a sea turtle. I made mine into the shape of a torch and wrapped the flag around it to represent the torch that goes throughout all of Central America every year. On September 14^th we participated in the celebration with the school children and marched with them with our frijoles.

On the morning of Independence Day, we attended the independence day parade in Santa Elena. In the beginning a man gave a speech and explained that the children are the future of Costa Rica and how necessary it was to invest in them for the better of the country. The children that perform in the parade go to a local private school that focuses on the arts. A lot of the children were a part of the band playing different instruments like he drums and xylophones. 

The younger girls would dance to the beat of the band and the older girls were dancing to their own music in traditional red, white, and blue dresses. Other kids were passing out flowers and treats for everyone to enjoy. I got a cute purple flower and some delicious sugar cane. The band was amazing and I thought the parade really brought everyone together tourists and locals alike. The parade went through all of Santa Elena and ended at a gymnasium where they had food and a place for the kids to have fun after the parade. Overall, we had a great time attending the parade and it was a good experience to see how another country celebrates their independence day.

By Addison Dennard and Tommy Bui

After our stay at La Selva, we visited a biological station in the Veragua Rainforest, founded to promote research of the flora and fauna in the surrounding area. We hung out on the porch, and played ping pong and Foosball before dinner. After dinner we had a night hike with the naturalists and biologists from the station. It was not a typical hike, because we walked on the paved way back to our cabin.However, we saw an incredible amount of wildlife within the small stretch between the dining hall and our rooms. Specifically, there was an enormous diversity of amphibians. We saw red-eyed tree frogs, dink frogs, tiger frogs, and an extremely rare Lemur frog. Towards the end of the hike, there was an amphibian breeding pond that had a symphony of frog calls blaring from the water. It was safe to say, we have never seen this many frogs in our entire lives.

The next day we were shown around to the various exhibits around the biological station. Although the primary mission of the station is research, it relies on tourism to support these studies. Made by the researchers themselves, the exhibitions consisted of endemic reptiles and amphibians. There was also a butterfly museum with a butterfly garden!  After lunch, we rode the tram down to the waterfall trail and the surprise, off-trail hike to the swimming hole. On the way, we saw the artificial breeding ponds that the researchers had made for the observation of tiger frogs. Later that evening, we had a lecture from the researchers about the amphibian and mammal research going on at the biological station. It was inspiring to see how much work they had put into learning more about the wildlife in the rainforest. For example, the mammal researcher would sleep during the day and be up all night to catch bats in the net he had set up over a stream; the amphibian researcher built a fake frog and made frog calls, in order to understand the territorial behavior of a certain species of frog. The research in Veragua describing these certain behavioral characteristics provides some of the only insight in the world on these animals.

After dinner, we then had an “extreme night hike” – straight down the mountainside to the stream. Again, there was a tremendous amount of wildlife. We saw sleeping toucans and sloths, along with even more frogs. While hiking in the stream, we got to see crabs, an eyelash pit viper snake, and bats. The mammal researcher even let us release the bats from the net! At the end of the hike, one of the naturalist asked us to turn off our lights and enjoy the forest in silence. He told us why it is important to learn and teach others about conservation, in order to save forests like the one that we were in. It was an extremely inspiring message and a great note to end the night on. Before we hit the road again the next morning, we went zip lining through the canopy. There were a total of 11 lines, and plenty of wildlife along the way. We even saw a sloth trying to descend the tree next to the zip line, but it slowly climbed back to its branch when it saw us. According to Amanda, these zip lines are a warm up for the one back in Monteverde.

Overall, our trip to Veragua has been one of our favorite stops. The wildlife was out of this world, and the researchers/naturalists were extremely welcoming. Before we left, one of the researchers gave us his business card, saying that we are welcome to come back to research through the University of Costa Rica and visit any time. Hopefully, some of us will take that offer up and be back with the frogs soon.

 

Please watch the video of our two day adventure in Veragua!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqmc0W_jydQ

By Ally Harrison

Ocean currents carry many things: sea turtles, messages in bottles, etc.  Seeds are another important thing ocean currents carry. I never thought of the ocean as a mode of seed dispersal until our professor Ron Carroll, God of Ecology and Knowledge, told all of us to collect five different seeds off of the beach in Cahuita. We brought our seeds and he enlightened us on ocean seed dispersal.

Cahuita is a beautiful beach along the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, south of Limon, close to Panama. In Cahuita, we found coconuts, monkeys combs and diaclea. Ocean dispersed seeds have distinctive characteristics compared to other seeds which make them easy to travel by ocean. Coconuts are a great example of ocean dispersed seeds; their thick shell protects the cotyledon from water. The seed must also be less dense than water so that it floats rather than sinks. Only 2-5% of seeds that travel by ocean are viable when they reach land. El Niño and La Niña have affected the inflow of seeds, and it has caused some invasive species to be introduced.

Ocean seed dispersal is the main reason coasts and islands can have such diversity. It explains why some plants and trees are present on beaches when they are not native to a country. It’s amazing how far these

seeds can travel; some tropical fruits from Florida can be found on the coast of Ireland. And vice versa, there are trees from Ireland that ride ocean currents for about a year and land in the tropics. This reminds me of the sweepstakes theory of animal dispersal that we learned in Ecology; it was thought that some animals came across the ocean floating on something like a log to the Americas. Ultimately, seeds travel far and wide so next time you see a tree out of place on the beach, you now know how it got there.

By Addison Dennard

Milton and Diana Lieberman are retired professors from the University of Georgia. They moved to Costa Rica, where they conducted and continue to conduct research and teach tropical ecology. Diana has a degree in biology from the University of California and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of Ghana. Luckily for us, their coffee farm is right down the road from campus, so they were able to spend an afternoon teaching us plant taxonomy. However, this was not a typical lecture. Instead of bringing books and assignments, Dr. Lieberman brought live plants. The class was split into four separate groups, and each group was given an assortment of various plants to identify.  She wanted us to use our “five-year-old” brains. Specifically, we were going to learn from making simple structural observations of these plants and eventually deducing families and species. First, we were instructed to sort the plants into separate species, based on similarities in structure. Although we did not learn the names of these plants, the act of examining and comparing them helped familiarize their structures. Next, we split the small groups of species into two large groups: monocots and dicots. Dicots have branched veins in their leaves, while monocots have parallel veins going in the same direction. Afterwards, we subdivided the plants into alternate and opposite branching patterns. This was based on whether the leaf buds were positioned directly adjacent to each other (opposite) or alternating along the stem. Finally, we further classified the branching pattern as simple or complex. Simple plants have only one leaflet per bud, while complex have branching leaves per bud. We were finally ready to learn the names of the plants. “Bring up the monocot, with a simple opposite branching pattern,” Dr. Lieberman would say, “does anybody know what this family is used for?”. “Agriculture…food…biofuel…,” we would all reply. In addition to the names of these plants, Dr. Lieberman taught us their importance and usage.  To our surprise, we could effortlessly sort our plants into families solely using the simple structural observations we had made throughout the whole lesson. By the end of the lecture, not only had we learned the family names for these tropical plants, we also familiarized ourselves with plant structures to help us identify plants back home. “Imagine if I dropped you in a remote untouched area,” Dr. Lieberman explained, “there would be no internet, no naturalists, no books. The only way to identify the plants would be through the same simple observations that you have made today.” Thanks to the Lieberman’s, we can now do this, and we gained intuitive knowledge for plant taxonomy.

 

By Amanda Glatter

Sustainable agriculture? In this economy? Unheard of, at least in the US. However, here in Costa Rica, organic farming is a revolution that’s just getting started. On day three of our trip to La Selva, we headed to La Finca Sura, an organic farm, owned by a man named Rodolfo. On his farm, Rodolfo produces a plethora of produce, like sugarcane, tilapia, and even cocoa. However, the highlight of the tour was the organically-grown pineapple, which was, might I add, the best pineapple I have ever tasted.

Pineapple makes up 80% of Costa Rica’s exported goods and is a 905.3 million dollar industry. However, pineapple is difficult to grow and when it has to be shipped to other countries, it is picked while it is still green. Ethylene is a chemical that induces flowering and ripening of fruits. It speeds up the process while fruits are still growing, but to achieve the more appealing yellow color, picked premature pineapples are sprayed with it. However, the fruit does not ripen once it has been picked. Even once ethylene has been added, ethylene only changes the color, not the internal quality. Pineapples will not mature after they are picked and are meant be harvested when they are ready to be eaten. The premature pineapples we have in the US may appear just as sexy as a fully mature pineapple, but it’s what is on the inside that counts. If you’ve ever bitten into a whiter-colored, minimally sweet pineapple, it was most likely picked early and yellowed using ethylene.

On Finca Sura we experienced pineapple the way it is best- straight off the plant and without synthetic pesticides. Growing pineapple is difficult and time consuming, but Rodolfo makes it look easy. After showing us some pineapple plots, he showed us how he plants it. He cut what looked like the stem of a pineapple off one of the plants already growing, walked it over to the new row, dug a small hole in the ground, stuck the plant in the hole, and that’s it. The process is sustainable in concept: taking a part of one plant to grow another. Therefore, the more you grow now, the more you can grow later. Organic pineapple requires organic fertilizer, so Rodolfo uses “caca de pollo,” showing that nothing goes to waste on this farm.

The tour ended with a tasting, of course. With a machete, the pineapple was cut from the plant and we got to eat it fresh. It was the sweetest, most flavorful pineapple I’ve ever tried, and it was much better than what we have in the US. Rodolfo cut pieces for everyone but handed me the remainder- stem and all. You could say I was a little bit excited. As much as I loved the pineapple, there is no way I could love it more than Matilda. Six years old and covered in mud, Matilda the pig was a sight for sore eyes. This sweet gal gobbled the whole fruit up in merely minutes, even eating the skin and core. Matilda can vouge for it- never will you try pineapple better than fresh off the farm.

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By MG Hall and Lucy Lewis

Our first trip of the semester was to San Gerardo Station, a lodge in the Children’s Eternal Rainforest high up on the Caribbean slope. The night before, we all packed our stuff, which had by this point exploded all over our 4-person bunk rooms, and moved out after breakfast that morning.  Once we were finally crammed into the two buses, we headed down the mountain. After a 30-minute ride through twists and turns that took us all the way up the mountain and into the literal clouds, we arrived at the trail head. As soon as we got out of the bus, it was clear that we were in the cloud forest; everything was enveloped in a white fog. Even though the distance wasn’t very far from San Luis, the forest looked completely different. It was much more lush and appeared to have much greater plant diversity. One of the first things that was pointed out to us was the fern trees, which most of us had never seen before. Their tops looked like fern umbrellas.

The hike down was long but all downhill. We had a naturalist, Elliot, with us to point out interesting things along the way. For example, he showed us Tiger Beetles that impersonate ants to trick predators. We saw a number of interesting insects (this whole country seems to be full of beautiful and fascinating insects), including a huge, black millipede! We watched it as it walked, and it was interesting to see how its legs moved slowly and in segments.

An hour and a half later we were at the base choosing bunks and claiming hammocks, completely unaware of the backdrop surrounding us because of the thick clouds that had rolled in, as we would learn they do every afternoon. After a fabulous lunch, the clouds had cleared, and we saw that we had a spectacular view of the Arenal lake and volcano! We could also see a couple of long waterfalls in the mountains in the distance. This isn’t a food blog, but I would be amiss to leave out how phenomenal the food at San Gerardo was every meal; that night our dinner exceeded our expectations with homemade tortilla chips, a mystery soup, and white rice.  I’ve never been so happy to be bean-free.

Every day we had the opportunity to go birdwatching in the morning, go on night hikes and go on hikes in the morning. Elliot left us on day two, but once we recovered from that loss, we embraced our new naturalist, Michael, and I for one hung on every word he said since he was a walking eco-dictionary.  He told us about the differences in the cloud forest versus the rainforest; for example, water is held most in moss on the bark of trees and can be collected from there and used.

We saw more interesting things than can possibly be recorded in this blog. When I went birdwatching, we saw two types of guans, two types of hummingbirds, a squirrel cuckoo and adorable tufted flycatchers. Other groups saw parrots and toucanets. On my night hikes, we saw red eyed tree frogs, which are endemic to the area, other types of frogs, a pit viper, all kinds of interesting insects, and my favorite, the bioluminescent beetle larvae. Another group saw a fruit bat and a special kind of frog called the glass frog, which has a translucent body and organs that are visible from the outside. A few highlights from morning and afternoon hikes were holding a huge beetle, little red fruits that smelled just like lemon drops, large, hanging nests of the Montezuma bird, leaves that had been used as temporary homes by tent bats, army ants carrying their eggs, many wild orchids, and puma tracks.

On our third night, Giovani, the manager of the house, told us the story of the land in San Gerardo.  He talked for about an hour with Michael translating, but the semi-abridged version is this: Giovani’s grandfather claimed the land in ’53 and with a machete cleared a patch to live in.  When I say live in I use the term lightly, as the hut was basically a Naked-and-Afraid-esque lean-to to keep the rain out.  According to Giovani’s father, they worked on building up the place and turning some into farm land, but that came to an end in 1973 when the government uprooted it.  Their intention was to build a dam near Arenal volcano, about 30 miles from what is now the house, and the government wanted to keep an uninhabited forest around to ensure water quality was up to standard. They asked the whole community to leave in exchange for a fair sum of money.  Reluctantly, the 14 families moved into the main town of Santa Elena and waited for a pay off that never came.  In 1977, four years past the supposed payment date, farmers decided it was their right to move back to San Gerardo, and so they did.  Giovani was 2 at the time and fondly recalled his childhood working with his dad on normal toddler jobs like sawing wood and building their family home.  He smiled as he told us about the communal fiestas they would have with the families in “town”.  I use quotations because if you could see this place you wouldn’t likely think “community” since the closest mark of civilization to the house is an empty pasture half a mile away, barely 15 feet out of luscious cloud forest.  Giovani and his friends have ATVs to get around on nowadays, which I can only imagine become mildly annoying since it rains every single day for a minimum of 2 hours.  After everyone moved back, around 1986 the forest, and therefore the farms, were in danger of being repossessed by the government when they realized there were in fact people living on the land they thought they had bought, but this time it ended differently.  Somehow, not quite clear on the how since my Spanish is subpar at best, a group of school kids in Europe heard about this and raised enough money to buy out the land that is now the reserve in ‘91, hence the name Children’s Eternal Rainforest.  The rest is basically history.  It gave the place a new feeling, for me at least, knowing how much time and sweat and love had been put into the land.  If Costa Rica could teach the world one thing, it should be how to love your land like they do.  We only get this one planet, and if we all treated in like the Ticos do, we might have it for longer.  It was unreal to sit on the porch and watch the clouds roll around and over the massive, and active, Arenal volcano while we wrote in our journals about things I had only seen on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel.  The three miles up and back were absolutely worth the 4 days we got to spend in San Gerardo, which means a lot coming from an out of shape college kid.  If you ever get the chance to visit and eat Giovani’s food while you watch giant birds and butterflies fly in front of a pink and purple sky lit volcano, I highly recommend it.

By Ellie Duffy and Jim Parker

Fungi fill essential niches in forest ecosystems, where they cycle nutrients, and maintain soil health and rich webs of species interactions and overall health. The rich biodiversity of the tropics is seen at all levels of life, especially the fungal assemblages. Their roles here are strange and varied as are their physiologies. One of the most important and common relationships that fungi are a part of is with trees as mycorrhizae. This is a relationship with the roots of trees, that serves to extend the rhizosphere of the tree and amplify intake of nutrients and water, and in turn gives carbohydrates to the fungus. This relationship is seen with most trees, and has amazing implications in forest systems. It has been tentatively proven that trees can share carbohydrates and nutrients with other trees through the mycorrhizal network. The seemingly intense competition of a forest may be more of a interconnected system than we tend to think.

In the tropics the mycorrhizal relationship is most commonly formed with AMF or “arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.” Paleobiology and molecular biology indicate that this relationship was necessary for the evolution of the first vascular land plants. Many of the systems present in the tropics haven’t changed very much over time. These symbioses are ancient. The AM relationship is different from the mycorrhizal relationship seen most commonly in temperate regions, in that it doesn’t produce conspicuous sporocarps (fruiting bodies, or mushrooms.) This means it just exists silently beneath the soil surface, no need for recognition, chugging along and making sure everything runs beautifully!

How wonderful!

A well-known tropical plant is the orchid.  They’re common house plants everywhere because of their signature flowers and strange fickleness.  The tropics are home to thousands of species and Costa Rica has at least 1400 different kinds of orchids.  A key to understanding orchid population dynamics may be found in the Orchid Mycorrhizal Fungus (OMF) which populates the roots of almost all orchids.  The relationship between the OMF and the orchid is symbiotic – the orchid supplies the fungus with carbon and the OMF provides nutrients to the orchid.  Since the plants often live as epiphytes in the branches of trees, nutrients are hard to come by and the OMF gives the orchid a much higher chance of survival.  It is now known that the OMF also plays a key role in the germination of orchid seeds, which are dust-like and numerous.  Because the tiny seeds can’t hold many nutrients for the germination process, the OMF is crucial especially for early development.

If the orchid mycorrhizal fungus represents a beautiful symbiosis, on the other end of the spectrum is the genus Cordyceps.  These nightmarish fungi are known for taking over the bodies of small insects (caterpillars and ants, for instance) and travelling to a tall location such as a shrub or tree branch.  Once there, the fungus bursts from the body of the unfortunate insect and fruits, allowing more spores to be dispersed.  Some species of Cordyceps are highly specialized for one species of insect, which acts as a method of population control.  If one species of ant seems to be taking over, the Cordyceps may be more likely to infect colonies of that ant, reducing the population and allowing other insects to compete.

 

While terrifying for insects, Cordyceps is commonly used by us humans for medicinal benefits.  Caterpillars infected with Ophiocordyceps sinensis are collected and sold at a high price.  The caterpillars have been used in traditional Chinese medicine and are now endangered there due to overharvesting.

 

Aren’t fungi neat!