Maripasario - Butterfly Research Lab

Maripasario is a local butterfly house and lab in the town of Colonia Libertad. The Maripasario is a joint effort with the Seeds of Change organization, several U.S. colleges  and the University of Costa Rica (Dr. Adrian Pinto's lab) and the local women of the town. The lab is currently being run by Sivla Ceballos and will be part of the Seeds of Change curriculum and research opportunities. Once operational, it will serve as a new source of income for the local economy as people come to visit the butterfly house.



In addition to the beauty of these creatures (the blue morpho is amazing), the lab has the critical task of finding new antibiotic producing bacteria that may be found in the different stages of the butterfly. Maddie, from Mercy Academy in Louisville, KY, was the first student to experience this type of research. She spent the afternoon working with Silva to culture bacteria found on the bodies of caterpillars. She also got to assist in the dissection of a pupa and culturing the microbiome associated with it. What a great experience for Maddie and we look forward to this being part of the summer research opportunities.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Costa Rica Day Two

Image
On this lovely day in Costa Rica ,we started our science reaserch. In the early morning birds were singing and woke all of us up. After our breakfast of eggs and fruit we took a tour on the chocolate farm. We got to try a cocoa drink with carillio cacoa with sugar and vanilla. There were also many other kinds of cocao treats. We learned about carillio and how the different qualities of chocolate are measured. Most industrial chocolate is more bitter and has more sugers and milk added. Every one we tried was great while also being healthy. Today we also go to take our first real trip into the rainforest. we took alot of great pictures. We were split in groups today and got to practice using the scientific  methoid. We got to grow bacteria in agar in petri dishes. Later in the afternoon we watch two short films about the leafcutter  ant and how they live, this wasa preview of the problem that we are going to be able to choose to study and solve. Trek through the rainforest ...
Read more

Daniel Carper and Andrew Box Describe Their Research Proposals and More Drone Footage

Image
Daniel Carper, I am a part of the Three Toe Sloths and the pilot of the drone. this trip has been amazing and I have already learned so much. Today we started our projects that we will be working on for the next few days. My group decided on a project involving a type of spider found here in Costa Rica, the Golden Orb Spider. This spider produces a secretion that wards off ants. In my project with my group we are going to put that to the test. We have devised a way to test how effective the spiders secretion is by using an Atta (leaf cutter ants) colony, a spider, and food for the ants. In this experiment the colony will be placed at one end of the container divided into three parts in the first compartment. The spider will be placed in the second compartment, and the food will be placed in the third. This will force the ants to enter and pass through the spiders web to get to the food. This will test whether the spiders secretion is actually effective against the ants. This has tak...
Read more

Horse Mania by Caelan and Gavin

Image
This is Caelan and this is my experience horseback riding. Horseback riding, what a great way to start the day! At 6 am, half of us woke up to start the great adventure of riding horses through Costa Rica's amazing sites while the other half slept in to experince the wonders later in the day. At the beginning of the experince, I was really excited to get on the horse and take off. Later I found out that the ride was going to consist of a simple walk, at least that was what was planned. The ride went great but when you are riding a horse that loves to be in the front while you want to go slow and enjoy the sites, you tend to experience some conflict along the way. The ride went smoothly at the beginning but towards the end, my horse was getting slightly agitated. As soon as we could see the building where we had to stop, my horse decided that it was tired of staying behind the rest of the group, it took off! My first instict was to scream and try to slow the horse down by pulling ba...
Read more