A Fearless jewel
NOT a Bird Dropping
January 24, 2020
The discerning eye of staff scientist, Annette Aiello, observed the fearless behavior of an iridescent insect resembling a bird dropping containing embedded, blue seeds.
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Displaying 30 of 61 results.
Old Genes, New Traits
Recycling old genes to get new traits – How social behavior evolves in bees
June 10, 2020
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.
Insect societies
Can social bees and ants teach us the pillars of sustainable societies?
June 18, 2020
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?
More to discover
New bird checklists from Jicarón and Jicarita Islands in Coiba National Park, Panama
July 01, 2020
A trip to Jicarón Island during the Coiba Bioblitz led to a published bird checklist.
Expedition
Two decades among the birds of Panama
August 05, 2020
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.
Uplift
Fossil trees on Peru’s Central Andean Plateau tell a tale of dramatic environmental change
August 28, 2020
As the Earth’s surface transforms, entire ecosystems come and go. The anatomy of fossil plants growing in the Andean Altiplano region 10 million years ago calls current paleoclimate models into question, suggesting that the area was more humid than models predict.
Slavery and Utopia
Peruvian Amazonian shaman rose to power on promises of liberation and immortality
September 14, 2020
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.
Ñeques, ants and arachnids
A journey of growth and discovery
October 09, 2020
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.
Stars in the sea
How the ability to clone itself may empower a mystery globetrotter
October 09, 2020
It always pays to think outside of the box. Rachel Collin decided to look further afield to find the adult form that matched a larvae from a plankton sample in Panama and was surprised by the result.
Sundance for Science
New nature documentary follows Smithsonian scientists underwater
October 19, 2020
Deep reefs may represent one of the most diverse, underexplored ecosystems on the planet.
