Deep in the Amazon rainforest, 37 miles north of Manaus, Brazil, stands a giant metal tower. Stretching 151 feet high, it rises through the rainforest canopy. Its spire reaches even higher above the treetops.
The tower, called ZF-2, was built in the 1980s to study climate. But recently, a team of entomologists climbed to its top to study something different: bugs!
From beetles to crickets to leaf-cutter ants, the insects lurking on the ground of the Amazon rainforest have been studied before. But an international team led by José Albertino Rafael, an entomologist from Brazil’s National Institute of Amazonian Research, wanted to know which insects live in the canopy. The team spent two weeks in 2017 collecting, counting, and sorting all the bugs they could catch. They found ants, bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies—so many flies.
The insects were so abundant at all elevations on the tower that the team started thinking of the rainforest as not just a horizontal ecosystem but a vertical one. Tropical rainforests are already known to be ecosystems with high biodiversity, or variety of life. More than 30 percent of the world’s estimated species of animals, plants, and insects live there! But not even the world’s foremost bug experts could have anticipated just how many insects call the rainforest’s canopy home.
“I’ve seen insect samples from a lot of places in the Amazon. This was really something special,” says Brian Brown, an entomologist—and fly expert—at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who was a part of the team.
Deep in the Amazon rainforest stands a giant metal tower. It stretches 151 feet high, not including the spire on top. That’s even higher than the rainforest canopy—the thick layer at the tops of the trees.
The tower is called ZF-2. It’s 37 miles north of Manaus, Brazil. It was built in the 1980s to study the climate. But recently, a team of scientists climbed it for another reason. They were looking for bugs!
Insects like beetles, crickets, and leaf-cutter ants lurk on the ground in the Amazon. But an international team of entomologists, or insect scientists, wanted to know which insects live up top. Instead of trying to climb the trees, they studied bugs at different levels of the tower. They spent two weeks in 2017 collecting and counting all the insects they could catch. The team found ants, bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, and beetles. They also found flies—a lot of flies.
The expedition was led by José Albertino Rafael. He’s an entomologist from the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Brazil. He and his colleagues already knew that tropical rainforests are hot spots for biodiversity, or variety of life. It’s estimated that more than 30 percent of the world’s animal and plant species live there! The scientists also knew that many of those animal species were insects. But even they hadn’t predicted how many bugs call the rainforest canopy home.
“I’ve seen insect samples from a lot of places in the Amazon. This was really something special,” says Brian Brown. He’s an entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County who was a part of the team.