WHEN IT COMES to doing research in the Amazon, Oliver Phillips says the worst part is the sweat bees. Phillips, an ecologist from the University of Leeds who has been working in the Amazon for 30 years, says the bees don’t bite or sting or carry diseases, like many of the rainforest’s other insects, but “they’re just all over you.” The instant you start sweating—which is the instant you set foot in the Amazon—they swarm your limbs, your nose, even your eyes, ravenously feeding on the salt in your perspiration. “They don’t do any damage except drive you crazy,” Phillips says.
