RAIN FOREST RECONNAISSANCE: In Central America, scientists are using new animal tracking technology to probe the secret lives of some of the most elusive tropical creatures

摘要

Wildlife watching in the rain forest can be frustrating. Take a late-afternoon hike last spring through the lush tropical woodlands of Panama's Barro Colorado Island. Though biologist Martin Wikelski and a companion heard plenty of wild animals—peccaries rooting through leaf litter, howler monkeys whooping from the treetops and countless birds and insects calling all around—they never spotted any of these creatures. The only animal the pair did see was a 6-pound, rabbitlike rodent called the agouti—and they saw lots of them, more than a dozen hopping along the dimly lit forest floor, many carrying palm seeds they would bury and cache for leaner times.