AMAZON
May 2005
4 of 11
AMAZON
May 2005
4 of 11
All text copyright © Eitan Grunwald. All photographs copyright © Eitan or Ron Grunwald
except photographs by others are copyright per photo credits. All rights reserved. Terms
Returning after our long march I gratefully head straight for the restrooms. I enter the bright green building,
close the door, and sit down. Upon finishing I flush the toilet, but, disturbingly, not everything goes down. A piece is
stuck to the side of the bowl just below the rim. I flush again, when to my horror, the stubborn remnant suddenly
moves and comes flying out of the bowl, landing on my leg!
Happens all the time, so I’m told.
The middle of the day was too hot for herping, so afternoons we usually hung around the compound, resting in
the shade or walking by the water. Sometimes we’d discover herps anyway (as evidenced by my bathroom
experience) moving about the buildings or grounds of the field station.
Here’s a sampling:
Down by the boats are muddy flats where a variety of herps make their living by the water’s edge.
Helicops come in two phases: nasty and nastier.
A pair of Jungle frogs found in the same swampy area.
One of my great pleasures was to go kayaking in the late afternoon. When we arrived the water was still high
enough to explore the vareza, low-lying forest that remains flooded for a portion of each year. Our trip coincided with
the transitional period, between the end of rainy season and the start of (relatively) drier weather, when the river
begins to recede. By the end of our week the Rio Oroso had fallen about six feet, exposing the forest floor where we
had been boating.
On one tall tree surrounded by water was a pair of Plicas, lizards that raced around vertically as if they were flat
on the ground. We saw them in the same place nearly every day until the water level dropped and ended the tree’s
isolation.
I often stayed on the river till nightfall, watching hundreds of bats flying overhead, listening to the “pffff...” of
pink dolphins exhaling, catching a faint glimpse as they rolled and disappeared into darkness.
Bridled Forest Gecko
Gonatodes humeralis
Collared Earth Snake
Atractus cf. collaris
Banded Neotropical Watersnake
Helicops angulatus
Slender Treefrog
Scarthyla ostinodactyla
Turnip-Tailed Gecko
Thecadactylus rapicaudus
Many-Striped Treefrog
Hyla haraldschultzi
Giant Marine Toad
Bufo marinus
Common Big-Headed Rain Frog
Ischnocnema quixensis
Plain Narrow-Headed Treefrog
Scinax cruentomma
Warty Jungle Frog
Leptodactylus rhodonotus
Black-Thighed Jungle Frog
Leptodactylus stenodema
Collared Tree Runner
Tropidurus (Plica) plica
