Insects I met in Ecuador

Leafcutter ants are one of my favourite insects and I was happy to find them multiple times. I found their nest, routes and harvest place.

It is very hard to make a picture of most insects because they hide when you come close with your camera and the light intensity is very low in most places.
I was amazed and happy to see so many ant and termite colonies. Huge (1-5 m) termite nest were clamped to trees and on every square meter of rainforest I could find at least one ant.
I played with the routes and nests of ants for a long long time, like a little ant autist.
I also saw some scary sized spiders, but they were too quick and scared to capture. Huge butterflies were everywhere, but I only saw them flying and never resting. The rhinoceros beetle was a funny beetle I met.
All in all I was more amazed than scared by all the insects. My DEET did an amazing job against all the flying insects and I ignored all the horror stories I had seen on Discovery Channel. Click the title for the insects album :)