Reflections from B. Sills

 The day started with breakfast, today's was eggs and ham. After breakfast, we went to the classroom. There, Dr. Pinto and Allen explained how to dig up an ant colony. After the explanation we started on a hike to a place with a lot of colonies for us to dig up. We first saw a palm plant that had been ravaged by leafcutter ants, leaves the size of my chest were just gone, taken away by the ants. We then continued our hike, coming upon a small Atta colony. This colony was too small to excavate so we counited on. As we passed more colonies, Dr. Pinto explained the larger colonies make their own highways to improve the effectiveness of the cutters. We finally reached the field, and we split up in our groups. my group was unlucky and instead of finding a leafcutter colony, we found a fire ant colony. I was the one digging, but the ants seemed to avoid me. Joey got the worst of it, they got into his jacket. After that bad experience, we moved on and found a real leafcutter colony. It was every easily to excavate, and we even got a queen, making us "Antmen."