Into the Night: Tales of Nocturnal Wildlife Expeditions

6. Do Not Go Gentle into That Tropical Night

121 SIx Do Not go gentle into that tropical Night Lee Dyer I have always been afraid of the dark. So not only is it ironic that I work at night a great deal, it is also odd that I work in the dim dank understory of tropical forests. Despite the numerous gaps, edges, rivers, and clearings, it always seems dark in the rainforest, where the green walls press in on all sides. Nights in those green cages offer a special brand of lightless energy—something more than a simple word like dark can manage to capture. It is true that the small details of life that I like to study are best seen in direct sunlight, with good fiber optics or with a brilliant spotlight, but insects and other small movers and shakers of biotic communities don’t always perform well under such circumstances. As a consequence of working in tropical forests, I have endured many night excursions and many hours of sitting in shadowy places, wondering what was crawling up my leg or tickling my neck. I’ve had to suck it up and deal with my fears. I think about all this while I walk through known territory one night—a fragment of Costa Rican rainforest, La Selva Biological DOI:10.5876/9781607322702:c06 6.1. Costa Rican rainforest Do Not go gentle into that tropical Night 123 Station, where I have worked for years. Another invertebrate ecologist , Eileen Hebets, has lured me out to find amblypygids (tailless whip scorpions) and to observe something about them—I can’t remember exactly what was behind this night excursion. I do know that walking through a rainforest at night is part of being a tropical biologist, and it is a world like no other. As I try to keep up with her quick pace, I can’t help but wonder about all the eyes out there watching me and I can’t forget numerous great stories from fellow tropical ecologists who spend nights peering into the dark woods. My favorite story has to do with an unintended encounter with spiders . Tom Walla is a pretty tough naturalist, with years of experience working in various ecosystems in Ecuador. On one of his many excursions , Tom and a group of biologists, all under the influence of some lowland forest plant brew, were restlessly wandering around the forest at midnight, examining animal eyeshine, luminescent fungi, aerial caterpillar silk, and deep holes in trees. For some unexplained reason, they were also stripped down to boots and hats. Some biologists like to be nude and intoxicated in the forest at night, I suppose. After some time, they realized they were completely lost and that it was time to extract themselves from the situation. Tom, who likes to be in charge, was near the end of the line of lost souls, wishing that he were leading this self-rescue attempt. His constant string of loud complaints did not go unnoticed, and soon the leader of the group, Harold Greeney, was considering giving in and turning over the navigation to Dr. Walla. Just then, Greeney came across a massive nest of social spiders—thousands of little spider eyes peered back at his flashlight. Arachnophobia is a very common phenomenon, even among entomologists, but social spiders strike a special fear into even the most undaunted hearts. And encountering them at night is, shall we say, special. Greeney stepped up to the very edge of the spider nest, then stepped aside. “Okay, Walla, you’re in charge. Come on up here and lead the way.” I’ve often seen Tom take charge of situations, and I can imagine his immediate run to the front of the line—and straight into the middle of the huge social Lee Dyer 124 spider web. However, I cannot imagine being covered by the obscene number of spiders that besieged Tom’s naked body that night. His writhing dance in the mud and his eerie screams have been described in detail by several individuals, and all descriptions are corroborative —and all make my skin crawl. Now, as I lumber through the dark in Eileen’s wake, I shudder at the thought of the social spiders, stopping to check for critters on my body. When I catch up to my companion again and tell her the Walla story, she isn’t amused; in fact, she seems a little annoyed. I think she...