Yanayacu, Papallacta, etc.

Here are the last of the pics from my Ecuador class trip.

Beautiful river coming out of the Andes. Here we are standing on a bridge above the river.

Up on the Guacamayos ridge. In essence we are looking down at the foothills and Amazon basin.

Cool giant grub!

Here is what happens when you are cleaning a glass and it breaks. I wish I could say I was doing something cool like wrestling a piranha or something. At least I end up with a cool scar. I should have gone to a doc immediately and gotten stitches but I ended up going too late.

Cool caterpillar at Yanayacu.

and big too.

This is the view from Yanayacu biological station.

The Antisana volcano as seen in the early morning from Papallacta.

Papallacta valley.

Llama!

Velvety water.

And now a few pics from earlier in the trip that we missed. Here is me with Bill Hopkins and Juane, the leader of his trip of guarani indians. This guy is tougher than nails and it was an honor to meet him.

One more of our group in front of the giant tree.

Walking the trail of tears at Yanayacu.

Sumaco- cloud forest

The second stop on the Ecuador trip was a resort/biological station called Wild Sumaco. Its at the base of the Sumaco volcano. The place is owned by a couple of Americans and the place is amazing. It has a great mix of lowland and highland species. Here are a few pics:

Cute humming bird.

Tree frog.

This is an amazing katydid. Note how its wing covers look exactly like a leaf, even looks like a leaf that has been eaten a bit by a caterpillar. Too cool!

Glass frog! Genus Centrolinidae. This is a very rare group of frogs that are named after their clear skin. If you flip them over your can see their heart beating because their skin is so transparent.

Toucan! This was shot through the spotting scope.

Nice waterfall. The water was quite cold but the students decided to 'shower' in it anyways.

At the lodge they had set up nearly a dozen hummingbird feeders and there were often dozens of hummers zooming around between them. Here are three species feeding at one time!

This was the view from the porch of the lodge... very nice!

Bill and I, teaching.

Terrestrial planarian worm. Yes, a giant flat worm! Doesn't get much more amazing than that.

Each morning we got a nice view of the Sumaco Volcano. We were at about 5000ft and looking up. It wasn't far away and very impressive.

View of the research station. The rooms were bunkhouses and there was a larger general use room that also served for dining.

camera trapping

As part of this trip to Ecuador, we brought some camera traps. These were actually part of one of the student projects. We had two of them and we bated them with bananas mostly, and one chicken. We got some amazing pics and will definitely be doing this again.

Here is an agouti in the cloud forest.

And here are a couple of pics of a Tyra in the rainforest. Cool beast!

Another pis of an agouti, this time in the rain forest.

And here is our most photographed subject, the paca. These things must love bananas because they spent lots of time eating the ones we put out.

Delicious bananas!

Great tinamou! Not eating bananas but still a bird thats hard to see.

More pacas.

This is a mother Andean fox and her pup. They were attracted to the chicken we put out (bought at the market and already de-feathered, etc.

The pup is kind of cute.

And here is the highlight, a jaguar in the rainforest!!! Never expected to get this pic. This trap was set up 200m from the station and the camera was checked 10min after the pics were taken, amazing!

And finally another agouti saying goodbye.

Ecuador class- Amazon basin

I spent the second half of May in Ecuador leading a class of VT students. I co-taught the course with Bill Hopkins, another prof at VT. We had 9 students and visited 4 distinct sites in Ecuador. We started in the lowlands and then worked our way up in elevation. For this pot I have pics from the Amazon basin. One thing that amazes me is that we were at about 1000ft ASL and this river only looses that much elevation over the net few thousand miles as these revers drain into the Amazon.

Overall the trip was amazing and we had lots of amazing moments. Here are a few.

From Quito we flew ~30min to Coca which is in the Amazon basin. From there we loaded into this 'bus' and drove 2 hours south on the Auca highway. From there we boarded a motorized canoe and went downstream 4+ hours on the Shiripuno river to our lodge. This lodge is run by the Waorani indians and its super isolated and amazing.

Giant Katydid we found on a night hike. Bigger than my hand!

Stick bug that was killed by a zombie fungus. The fungal spores are you see coming out of the insect.

Giant beetle! This thing looks like it could do some damage.

Perhaps the best frog we caught on this trip, Pipa pipa. The female incubates her eggs on her back (this is a male). After the eggs are laid they are inbedded in her skin where they develop until they hatch out as little frogs.

Cool toad!

Paw print from a jaguar. For size, the hand is Rudy's, our guide, who is 6'8".

Caiman seen on a night float down the river. The eye shine is amazing.

Phyllamedusa frog. These are sooooo coooool!

Amazonia tree boa. One of the guides spotted this by eye shine. It was in a tree and we were on the canoe... at night.

Cute little tree frog.

Cute little snake. We found a few of these, I suspect they had just hatched.

Beautiful little racer lizard.

Emerald tree boa! The local lodge guy has been working there for 7 years and had never seen one. We saw 2 in one day! This one was just hanging out on a branch. The other we saw at night and he was cruising around. Typically these guys are up in the canopy so they are not seen.

Fer-de-lance, Bothrops atrox. We stumbled upon this guy at night.

Velvety lancehead, Bothrops brazilii. We saw this guy the same night. If we had been tagged by either one, it would have been VERY bad. Luckily we are professionals.

Wooly monkey hanging upside down. They seemed as curious of us as we were of them.

Hoatzin! This is the only bird in the world that exclusively eats leaves. Yes, its a leaf eater.

This is a big tree... sort of. See below.

This is our group in front of our canoe on the Shiripuno river. Second from the left is Juane, the head of his tribe. This guy is a real waorani with 3 wives and 15 kids. I wouldn't mess with him.

Blue ringed cecilian! What a cool amphibian. We have him in a ziplock because he was impossible to hold. Slimiest creature I have ever tried to hold.

Here are some pics of the lodge. These were the rooms, dorm style.

This is the main building used for hanging out, eating, cooking, lectures, etc. Very pleasant with hammocks.

Now this is a big tree! Its a Ceiba and from this angle you can get an idea how big it is. No idea how tall or old it is but its substantial.

On the way back to civilization, we stopped in on a Waorani village. Amazing experience. This is one of the elders. Supposedly her has been tagged by hot snakes 4 times and robbed 3 babies from Harpy eagle nests. Yes, he's a bad man.

Here is his last kill, a peccary. It was in a basket above the fire.

and here is how he puts a blow dart through an orange he set out 10m away. The darts were tipped with curary, so I handled them carefully.

I tried and failed. The blow gun is heavy!

Waorani kids.

Anaconda! This guy was in some branches in the river. It was between 2-3m, probably.

River turtles.

And this is how we got around on the river. Notice the two local guys giving hand signals to the driver who is at the back. There is lots of debris in the river so we had to avoid it which is not easy when you are steering a 25ft long boat from the rear.