People often ask me what it’s like to live in the Amazon. That’s not an easy question. I have so many impressions that it’s hard to give a simple answer.

While I spend a lot of time in the city of Manaus, home to over a million people, I do go into the forest for several days each month. To reach our study site, about sixty miles north of the city, we have to drive through the rainforest for two hours over very bumpy, muddy roads.

We see many animals as we bounce through the forest. Macaws—big parrots—often fly overhead, screeching madly. Sometimes we see little groups of monkeys, like golden-handed tamarins, trying nervously to cross the road. One day a giant anteater—eight feet long, with a massive tail and long, protruding snout—bolted out of the forest just in front of us, and we had to swerve to avoid hitting it.