I am so excited to be living in Colombia where I can wake up everyday and find a living thing I’ve never seen before in my life! My name is Li and I grew up in the Mountain West of the United States. One of my favorite places in the world is the Beartooth Pass in Montana where you can cross the great Rocky Mountains in a very steep and winding car ride and see incredible creatures like Grizzly bears and Moose. Now in Colombia, I get to live near some more very impressive and enormous mountains – the Andes! I love the mountains and I can’t wait to share more about how these giant mountains affect all the incredible creatures here in Colombia.
Some of my very favorite creatures are actually very tiny. When I was in college, I fell in love with bees, all different kinds–fuzzy bees, striped bees, shiny bees–bees that nest in the ground, in piles of leaves, in trees, in hives! I started a club to learn about how to better take care of bees because their little lives have such a big impact on our environment. When I fell in love with bees, I decided I wanted to be an entomologist – a type of scientist who studies insects. My love of insects also helped teach me how important it was to have the chance to interact closely with creatures very different from myself, observing them in the “field” where they live, as well as in the “lab,” a place where scientists can set up experiments and use specialized tools.
