Nonstudy species captured so far:
- Muchos muchos hormigas (ants), divided into three nontaxonomic categories:
a) Sugar ants -- these tiny guys mob the bait balls and suck out all the moisture, leaving only dust and peanuts. Pleasantly harmless.
b) Small ants -- these jerks mob the bait and then bite you when you check the Sherman traps. They will run around between bites, employing a scatter technique to achieve maximum surprise and irritation.
c) Big scary ants -- I haven't had the chance to compare bites between these guys and the small ants, but considering their mandibles, I don't particularly want to. Well, I kind of do, for science, but I'm not looking forward to it.
- Crickets
- Wolf Spiders
- Lizards. The guys love eating all the ants that love the sandy soil of intensive coffee farms, and will follow them into the Sherman traps and scare the bajeezus out of biologists by suddenly flailing, surging out of invisibility from under the floor panel of the traps, or just leaping at their faces. It seems like they need to be medium-sized to trigger the trap doors, so our accidental captures have averaged ~20 cm long.
- Small birds, only one caught so far. Zoomed out seeming no worse for the wear of being caught for a few hours between trap checking and baiting.
On camera traps: dogs, plantation workers, many sassy sassy birds (the larks seem to like to pose and are always coming back for more), and an abundance of candids of techs wandering around looking for the camouflaged little buggers.
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