ambience: Ecuadorian Amazon
Photos and audio from November 2010, Parque Etnobotánico Omaere, in Puyo, Ecuador.
Audio notes:
All my best bird call recordings were rainy—seems like jungle birds really like to sing in the rain! The second and last clips in the audio are from Princesa, the green parrot featured in a couple of the photos, an Orange-Winged Amazon (Amazona amazonica). She lives in the reception of the park because she cannot fly. I don’t know the other bird calls.
Photo notes:
The first picture is a hornworm caterpillar (Sphingidae), parasitized, probably by a braconid wasp (thank you Jenn!).
The second shows a “walking palm” (Socratea exorrhiza). It can move a few feet horizontally throughout its life by putting out new roots in one direction or another. I learned that this is in order to grow toward the light (for example, I’ve seen a spot where three individuals started growing in the same spot and are moving away from each other), but the internets have just told me that the function of the roots are debatable and not well-understood. Anyway, it is true that people use the spiky roots as scraping tools for yucca and the like.
The third picture shows sangre de drago—click here to read the entry that goes into detail about this plant.
The other parrots besides Princesa are all macaws: blue-and-yellow (Ara ararauna), scarlet (Ara macao), and red-and-green (Ara chloropterus). The scarlet and red-and-green thought they were a couple and decided that the park reception was their territory, and oh my gosh, you do not understand how mean parrots can be! These guys terrorized the reception, and would attack unprovoked! If you ever have doubts that dinosaurs and birds share a common ancestor, spend some time watching angry parrots, and you will doubt no more.
The really gorgeous flower shown near the end is a passionflower (Passiflora). In the first picture you can see a leaf-footed bug (Coreidae), and the second shows a euglossine bee. Male euglossine bees have the wonderful and unique behavior of collecting flowers’ fragrances, probably to attract females, though this has not been proven yet. The one in the picture is a female though; males’ hind legs are swollen to collect the chemicals (thank you Doug!).
