The Panama City-Gamboa-Frijoles train
The Frijoles train station, 1983
One of our favorite sightings on BCI was Alice the tapir. She visited the laboratory on BCI in search of kitchen scraps. This happened mostly during years of food shortages. Tapirs look like a cross between a pig and a rhinoceros with a long, flexible nose and a short, stubby tail.
Alice the tapir on Barro Colorado Island
A three-toed sloth in Cerro Punta, Chiriqui Highlands, Panama, 1983
Our apartment in Gamboa was clean and airy. But the first morning, when we flipped on the kitchen light and watched cockroaches scurry into dark corners, I realized I was in a different ecosystem than my native New England. Our apartment cockroach was just one of more than 100 species of cockroaches found in central Panama. Not only are there many more species of each taxa in Panama, most animals and plants are bigger than comparable species here in our northern climes. Take the foot-long stick insect that was stuck in one of our mist nets. At first glance it looked just like a stick, until we saw it move ever so slowly.
A big stick insect (commonly called a walking stick) in Panama, 1983
A leafcutter ant with flower fragment (Photo by Larry Kolczak)
The trees, vines, flowers, and fruits were equally diverse and uniquely adapted to their tropical habitats. There was not the time to learn the thousands of species, but time enough just to enjoy their shapes and colors and beauty.
A rich diversity of plants in Panama
Tomorrow -- the Panama Canal before, during, and after 1983.