Just a little respect
Bocas dolphins may be more sociable while we shelter in place
Abril 13, 2020
A study of dolphin behavior in the presence of tourist boats informs conservation efforts.
A study of dolphin behavior in the presence of tourist boats informs conservation efforts.
Tens of thousands of tiny bone fragments reveal eating habits, ceremonial practices and the development of animal domestication during more than 2000 years of history.
Researchers learned from some unusual sweat bee species on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, how the sophisticated division of labor in highly complex insect societies can arise from humble beginnings.
STRI staff scientist and evolutionary biologist Bill Wcislo discusses the foibles of social bees and farming ants and the evolution of their behavior in changing environments. In a time of crisis, what can we learn from these insects about their highly efficient public health care systems?
Between 1944 and 1966, Dr. Alexander Wetmore, a legendary ornithologist and Sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, investigated the avifauna of the Isthmus of Panama. This became the basis of his four-volume ‘The Birds of the Republic of Panama’. In this webinar, STRI anthropologist Dr. Stanley Heckadon-Moreno takes us for a historical and photographic journey across Dr. Wetmore’s expeditions in Panama, with the support of Dr. Pamela Henson, director of Institutional History at the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Anthropologist Fernando Santos-Granero has pieced together the story of a change agent whose life spanned an important period in South American history in his book, Slavery and Utopia, now available in English and Spanish.
The first time Dumas Gálvez saw the ant species Ectatomma ruidum under a microscope, he was just a little boy. He was immediately fascinated. A few decades later, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), a professor in the entomology department at the University of Panama and a mentor to young scientists, he does research on that same ant species. Listen to him narrate every step of his academic journey: his experiences, mentors, mistakes and lessons learned.
Join Jose Loaiza, STRI Research Associate and Senior Scientist at Panama’s INDICASAT-AIP, for the latest information about the role of disease transmission by mosquitos in Panama.
Just as contemporary human societies depend on large-scale agriculture, leaf-cutter ants depend on a long, co-evolved relationship with a fungus. As humans, we may share some of the same rules that govern their relationship.
STRI staff scientist Richard Cooke has been elected to the Committee of Honor of the International Council for Archaeozoology, of which he has been a member since 1993.