Student biologists take tropical trip to the rainforest

Student biologists take tropical trip to the rainforest. Third-year students enjoy Imperial's first field trip to Uganda %0A " - By Danielle Reeves - Tuesday 13 October 2009 Having your packed lunch stolen by an inquisitive baboon isn't something that happens every day whilst studying for a biology degree at Imperial College London. But, as a group of undergraduate students found out on a field trip to Uganda this summer, there's never a dull moment when the rainforest is your classroom. Twenty third-year biology and ecology students and three academic staff flew out to the Kibale National Park in western Uganda for two weeks in September this year, for the College's first ever tropical biology field course. Staying at a Makerere University field station deep in the rainforest, the students all got to experience the life of a tropical biologist first-hand. Often rising before dawn, the students got involved with hands-on activities such as mist-netting and ringing tropical birds, including sunbirds and weavers, identifying tropical plants and insects, and trapping palm-sized moths by moonlight. The area around the field station was also home to a large variety of primates, including the rare and endangered Ugandan Red Colobus monkey, and Olive Baboons, who were fearless in their pursuit of the students' food.