Untamed Land

Untamed Land
Untamed Land

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Creepy Crawlies of Peru

i'm still just a big kid, and I have always loved spiders and snakes. So I pay attention to all the little critters wherever I go. It's too bad that there are no reptiles in Alaska where I live. Just one small frog, Wood Frog. These are some of the most interesting things I got to see in Peru this Jan. and Feb.
This is the only reptile I found outside of the Amazon Basin. It was about 8 " long, and lived in the barren desert of Paracas Nat. Park.
A fisherman caught this Anaconda in his net, and brought it by the lodge on the Cumaceba River, I forget the name of it, to show the tourists.

I think this was a male Anaconda, very unfriendly.


Some kind of Amieva, very common everywhere in that part of the Amazon.



A huge Cicada that has just emerged from it's larval stage. Notice the termites on the right. This Cicada was about 4 inches long.




There was a pair of these treefrogs living in my bathroom in the lodge on the Cumaceba River.

Smokey Jungle Frog. This is about the biggest frog I have ever seen.


Fishing Spider? The lodge on the Cumaceba River was set amid flooded Varzea forest. I have never seen so many spiders, and bats in my life. We explored the jungle by canoe. As we pushed through the thick vegetation, we disturbed thousands of spiders. It was impossible to keep the many spiders and ants from crawling all over us. The spiders did'nt bite, but my eyes stung from all the formic acid that the ants released whenever I brushed them from my face.


The tree trunks on the Cumaceba River were the home territories of many large, beautiful, and tractable, Pink-toed Tarantulas.


My guide Lenin with a huge Tail-less Whip Scorpion. Completely harmless.



We explored the flooded forest at night to find baby Spectacled Caimans. It was eerie moving amoung the twisted tree trunks by canoe. There were huge numbers of bats, and flying insects. Spiders all over us. The guide up front, kept getting stung by huge wasps. He doubled up in pain after every bite. I was relieved to get back to the lodge, although there was no shortage of critters inside the lodge. At least we had tight fitting mosquito nets over the beds.

A small caiman, sunning on a log at Laguna Quistacocha.


mystery mammal in the flooded forest.


The ubiquitous Leaf-cutter Ants.


Millipede, ugly but harmless.

A large Walking Stick.


I visited a small, isolated village on the Cumaceba River. This Fer De Lance was crawling through the middle of the village in broad daylight. This is unusual behavior for a nocturnal snake. Fer De Lance's are responsible for more human fatalities in South America, than all other snakes combined. The villagers were completely unconcerned about the viper.

This guy was not the least bit pugnacious, but many snakes change their personality after dark.


Several of these things are species I am not familiar with. If you know the names of any of these that are not already named, I would appreciate any information you may have about them. Thanks for looking.

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