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A pale wasp-ant larva devours the special ant “baby food” grown for it by the acacia tree in which it lives. Costa Rica.

A wasp-ant returns to her nest within the hollow center of an acacia tree thorn. She carries special ant “baby food” grown by the tree. Costa Rica.

Acacia trees grow nutritious carrot-shaped bodies on the tips of their leaves, which serve as a special food for wasp-ant “babies.” Costa Rica.

Certain ants develop tree-size symbioses for their mutual survival with plants. In some of the most highly evolved relationships known, the trees provide the ants with food and housing. In return the ants fend off the tree’s leaf-eating…

Kongue Falls is a two-mile-wide expanse of rolling water that thunders through a chain of islands, churning up mountains of foam.

Kongue Falls is a two-mile-wide expanse of rolling water that thunders through a chain of islands, churning up mountains of foam.

Gathering their courage, the team wades into the rapids of thunderous Kongue Falls. Many are nervous; several cannot swim. “If you slip, you’re gone.”, says Fay.

At day’s end, Fay’s feet are plastered with muck, but open sandals fend off infection better than sodden shoes. Here Fay and Bebe, the point man, locate a clear stream. They once had to drink from a mudhole.

While visiting their first village on a main road, team members hit the bars. One smashed a river and landed in jail and another got in a fight. Fay lectured them while they returned, broke and hungover.

A mandrill orphaned by a shotgun blast grabs for the camera tethered on a rope in a hunting camp.