Team Scarab members Brett Ratcliffe, Ronald Cave, M.J. Paulsen, and Jesus Orozco (PhD student in the Team Scarab lab) traveled to Guatemala for two weeks (28 June to 11 July 2009) to collect and make field observations in multiple localities. This trip was conducted as part of our NSF-sponsored project entitled "A Biotic Inventory of the Dynastine Scarabs of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize" with PIs Brett Ratcliffe and Ron Cave. Our first day was spent planning field logistics and identifying and databasing the dynastine collections at the Universidad del Valle with our in-country collaborator, Enio Cano, the curator of the collections. Ron Cave gave a Powerpoint presentation about the project to university staff and students and the visiting NSF-sponsored LLAMA (Leaf Litter Arthropods of Mesoamerica) team (Robert Anderson, John Longino et al.) from Canada and the U.S. 

The next several days were spent collecting with Enio Cano and Jack Schuster at the Biotopo del Quetzal in the mountains to the northwest of Guatemala City: foliage gleaning, fruit traps, and dung traps during the day and light traps and foliage gleaning at night. It rained A LOT in this area while we were there (see images below), but we still managed to collect species of Cyclocephala, Aspidolea, Euetheola, Heterogomphus, and Phileurus. From there we traveled east to a dry, scrub acacia forest near Santa Cruz for lighting; mostly aphodiines and unproductive for Dynastinae. Heading west, we went to Finca El Pilar on Cerro Carmona near Antigua Guatemala for collecting at higher elevation (2000 meters) where dynstines were attracted to the lights: Aspidolea, Ancognatha, Orizabus, and Xyloryctes species. For the next five days, Ratcliffe and Cave worked in the collections at UVG, while Cano, Orozco, and Paulsen left to collect at the UVG's Reserva Quetzal near Santa Bárbara. A total of 61 scarabaeoid genera were collected during this two week trip. The entire collection of Dynastinae at UVG was identified, databased, curated and greatly expanded. Data were also taken from some specimens residing in the collection at the Universidad de San Carlos.
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