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News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Sep-2025 18:11 ET (1-Sep-2025 22:11 GMT/UTC)

Extinct giant shark nursery discovered in Panama

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Young giant sharks, now extinct, may have grown up in shallow water nurseries, according to new findings from Panama's Gatun Formation.

Journal: PLOS One
Funder: National Science Foundation

A howling success: The 5th howler monkey census on Barro Colorado Island

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The fifth Howler Monkey census at the Smithsonian's Barro Colorado Island research station in Panama, organized by Katie Milton, University of California, Berkeley, revealed that monkey numbers have not changed significantly since the first census 33 years ago.

Sand fly barcoding in Panama reveals Leishmania strain and its potential control

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the first barcoding survey of sand flies in Panama, scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Gorgas Memorial Laboratories identified 20 sand fly species from Barro Colorado Island. Two species carried Leishmania naiffi, a parasite that causes cutaneous leishmaniasis. Three species carried Wolbachia, a bacterial parasite of insects that could contribute to a strategy to control the flies and limit disease transmission.

Journal: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Funder: Panama's Fundación Gabriel Lewis Galindo, National Science Foundation

New thick-shelled turtle species lived with world's biggest snake

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The discovery of a new fossil turtle species in Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the Florida Museum of Natural History helps to explain the origin of one of the most biodiverse groups of turtles in South America.

Journal: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Funder: Smithsonian Paleobiology Endowment Fund, Florida Museum of Natural History, Miss Lucy Dickinson Fellowship, Carbones del Cerrejon LLC, Fondo para la Investigacion de Ciencia y Technologia Banco de la Republica de Colombia, National Science Foundation

Eating like a bird helps forests grow

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Lions, tigers and bears top the ecological pyramid -- the diagram of the food chain that every school child knows. A new study examines complex interactions in the middle of the pyramid, where birds, bats and lizards consume insects. These predators indirectly benefit plants, Smithsonian scientists report.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Latin American scientists define their position regarding sustainable biofuels

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Business Announcement

The resolution of the Latin American Convention of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project is now available to the press. The Latin American meeting, which followed the European and the African reunions, took place last week (March 23-25) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the Sao Paulo Research Foundation.

Social bees have bigger brain area for learning, memory: Smithsonian reports

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Who's in charge? Who's got food? The brain region responsible for learning and memory is bigger in social bee queens who may have to address these questions than in solitary queens, report scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute who study the tropical sweat bee species, Megalopta genalis, in Panama. Their study is the first comparison of the brain sizes of social and nonsocial individuals of the same species.

Funder: Panama's National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation, Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Studies Program, F.H. Levinson Fund

HSBC Climate Partnership yields initial research findings

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rapid increases in tree growth in the US, slower tree growth in the tropics, new ideas about biodiversity, new methods for monitoring forest carbon stocks: Researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Earthwatch met in Panama from Mar. 1-5 to present mid-term research results from the HSBC Climate Partnership.

Funder: HSBC Climate Partnership
Meeting: Taking Stock: Mid-Term Review of HSBC Climate Partnership Research Efforts

Females shut down male-male sperm competition in leafcutter ants

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Danish researchers who have studied ants at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama since 1992 discovered that in both ant and bee species in which queens have multiple mates, a male's seminal fluid favors the survival of its own sperm over the other males' sperm. However, once sperm has been stored, leafcutter ant queens neutralize male-male sperm competition with glandular secretions in their sperm-storage organ.

Journal: Science
Funder: Australian Research Council, Danish National Research Foundation

Chagas disease surveillance focuses on palms, undercover bugs

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Failure to detect disease vectors may result in increased disease risk. The first systematic study in the Amazon of surveillance techniques for the bugs that transmit Chagas disease takes into account the fact that sticky traps and manual searches often miss bugs living in palm trees.

Journal: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases