We continue south on the Green Line to our next stop in a tropical rainforest. And then, we will have a luau on a beach.
This forest is a treasure for bird watchers (how we miss Mac now). Some of Mac’s favorite birds are woodpeckers and hummingbirds. They are here, but we wonder if Mac would have been more thrilled with the scarlet macaws, for example.
There is another notable absence, one that is intentional, a disinvited party guest – the mosquito. It is hard to know how to feel about their elimination. In this rainforest, their presence would have been impossible to ignore and beyond an annoyance. They have killed more of our species than any other. Still, to have done away with them using CRISPR (at least in this area) leaves questions about our vitality to fight for survival.
The feeling comes back from when we used AI to spot the moon bears – weak.
Eliminating mosquitoes did not bring down the hummingbirds or the woodpeckers, thankfully. After the tragic loss of so many insects worldwide, AI was also vital in another undertaking as we steward life on Earth.

photo credits: amazon kingfisher by Gerry Zambonini , red-crowned woodpecker by Francesco Veronesi , magnificent hummingbird by Frank Vassen , scarlet macaw by  Petr Kratochvil , orange-chinned parakeet by Fernando Flores , turquoise – browed motmot, great jacamar, and orange collared manakin by Francesco Veronesi , lattice tailed trogon by Matt MacGillivray