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Scarab Central
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Team Scarab in Venezuela
June 1999
Brett Ratcliffe and Mary Liz Jameson

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Scarab beetles can be found in nearly every earthly habitat, but they are most abundant in the ever-wet, tropical rainforests where humming mosquitoes abound and stagnant air, ripe with the scent of fermenting fruits, rotting vegetation, and monkey dung, permeates the forest.
This year Team Scarab in the Division of Entomology (Drs. Brett Ratcliffe and Mary Liz Jameson and their graduate students, Andrew Smith and Karla Villatoro) traveled to Venezuela in search of tropical scarab beetles. In June we conducted research and collaborated with colleagues at the entomology museum at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Maracay. While there, Dr. Ratcliffe gave a seminar (in Spanish) about his research on scarab beetles in Costa Rica and Panama.

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More than just birds and insects migrate to Portacheulo Pass - so do entomologists!
Team Scarab from left to right:
Karla Villatoro, Brett Ratcliffe, Mary Liz Jameson, Andrew Smith.
Photo by obliging tree stump.
The faculty at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Maracay kindly hosted our visit to Venezuela. Left to right: Nereida Delgado, Vilma Savini, Carlos Julio Rosales, Andrew Smith, Luis Joly, Hermes Escalona, Mary Liz Jameson, Brett Ratcliffe.
Photo by Karla Villatoro.
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We spent 21 days in Venezuela and explored several spectacular habitats, all of which were rich with scarabs. Destinations included ever-wet cloud forest in the northern-most Andes mountains (home of the rare spectacled bear), cold and windy paramo grassland above treeline at 3000 meters elevation, dry chaparral forest with tall, hairy cacti and thorny trees, and mid-elevation rainforest where the gray, coastal clouds swept in and delivered a daily rain shower. Major collecting localities were Parque Nacional Sierra Madre, Parque Nacional Guaramacal, Parque Nacional Yacambu, and Parque National Henri Pittier. Our favorite location was Portacheulo Pass, an area where the insects migrated from the northern lowland habitats over a low ridge to the southern lowland habitats. Here we saw an abundance of migrating butterflies and beetles that were all funneled into a narrow pass. It was incredible! Swarms of rainbow-colored butterflies and insects struggled uphill against the wind and floated in the air like dazzling ornaments. Species new to science and observations that have never been recorded are always part of a trip to the tropics. Now we are curating and identifying the specimens, and we will begin to unravel some of nature's mysteries.
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Karla Villatoro, Andrew Smith, and Brett Ratcliffe among the buttresses of a forest giant at Henri Pittier National Park.
Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
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Karla Villatoro intent on indentifying the insect that she has just captured at Portacheulo Pass,
Henri Pittier National Park.
Photo by Brett Ratcliffe.

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Andrew Smith demonstrating a new
and effective collecting techinque at Portacheulo Pass.
Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
 
Estacion Rancho Grande in Henri Pittier National Park. Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
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Scarab fever affects all of us differently. Here, Brett Ratcliffe demonstrates one of the side effects. Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
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Beetle aficionado Carlos Bordon (Maracay, Venezuela) features his favorite group, the weevils. Left to right: Karla Villatoro, Carlos Bordon, Brett Ratcliffe, Andrew Smith,
and Dr. Clavijo.
Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
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Andrew Smith pondering the big cetoniine scarab that just got away.
Photo by Brett Ratcliffe.
Platycoelia flavostriata (Latreille) closely mimics the VW bug.
Photo by Mary Liz Jameson.
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UNSM logo
Division of Entomology
W 436 Nebraska Hall
University of Nebraska State Museum
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0514 USA
Curator:
Brett C. Ratcliffe
(402) 472-2614
bratcliffe1@unl.edu
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