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Founded by the
Natural History
Museum
in London,
Las Cuevas
is a field research station in the Central American
country of Belize. The station is tucked away in a remote
part of Belize, in the largest remaining rainforest
in Central America. The jungle surrounding Las Cuevas
is home to scarlet macaws, jaguars, pumas, tarantulas,
bats, leaf-cutter ants, and a host of other creatures
and plants.
The Natural History Museum in London has 70 million
specimens, from plants and rocks to bugs and boas. This
“library of life” houses not just vast collections
of organisms, but also an international community of
scientists dedicated to studying them. Many specimens
collected at Las Cuevas are sent to the Natural History
Museum for further study using state-of-the-art equipment.
Some of these specimens eventually become part of the
National History Museum’s permanent collection,
while others are sent to museums worldwide.
As different as these two places are, they are connected
by the research they support, which explores the nature
and diversity of life.
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“The Natural History
Museum works in something like sixty countries all
over the world. But Belize is specifically important
because it still retains an awful lot of its natural
forest cover, unlike many other countries in Central
America that have cleared the forest for agricultural
and building purposes.” —Chris
Minty, Manager, Las Cuevas Research Station
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