- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
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My wife and I went on a photographic 8 day trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon last month. We started out at a cloud forest at Mindo and ended up at an eco lodge along the Napo River. We did a lot of night hiking and canoeing. Here are some of our photos of invertebrates. All the photos were taken by me with a Sony Cybershot digital camera.
Here is a typical habitat in the cloud forest at Mindo.
A juv T we found early one morning while hiking.
Another juv T.
A golofa pizzara beetle that I found.
I couldn't pass up showing these incredible flowers that were everywhere. This photo is not touched up.
Some large white legged millipedes.
This is the lodge we stayed in along the Napo River. No roads, just a 3 hour boat ride. This is Sani Lodge, run by the Kichwa Indians. An absolutely beautiful place.
Typical habitat in the Ecuadorian amazon lowland. This picture is taken from a tree tower.
Another shot of the same.
This avic was huge. easily 7+ inches.
These tarantulas were very common. I found many burrows almost everywhere we hiked. The T's only came out at night though and dashed into their tunnels with lightning speed as soon as I approached. I had to mark the burrows during the day and return at night creeping up to the burrow to see the Ts. They were mostly about 6 inch size.
I think this was a carnivorous plant. There was a lot of variety of plants.
Another, better shot of those common T's. There's a cricket in the same photo below the T. This T is about 7 inches. Most were smaller.
A 10 foot ant nest in a tree.
There were lots of giant 1 inch + black ants that had nasty stingers. We found nests of these near the bases of small trees.
Leaf cutter ants were very common. At night there paths were much busier and widened to 2 feet in some spots.
A cool grasshopper.
A leaf mimic grasshopper.
A common millipede. I love these guys.
These 8 inch millipedes were very common along paths at night. I could have collected a hundred in 5 minutes.
A colorful beetle.
Another interesting beetle.
A callipogon beetle, almost 4 inches without the antennae.
Lots of different cockroaches. This one caught my eye. It's about 3 inches.
A nephila spider on our cabin. It had a three foot wide web.
A land snail shell, yes, land snail.
We saw a lot of tailless whipscorpions. Most were about 7-8 inches with the whips.
A 3-4 inch phasmid.
In this picture there is a huge communal spider colony. The web is in the lower left corner and was easily 5 feet wide with a ten foot webbed brace going up into the tree to the right. I got up close and saw thousands of bright red spiders each about 1/2 inch. There were several large grasshoppers caught in the web and each one had 50 spiders feeding on it.
A sleeping butterfly. I think its a morpho.
We canoed some small rivers, which put me in heaven.
Some turtles along a lagoon.
A pitviper, beautiful, but dangerous.
We did a little piranha fishing, which was fun.
An iguana on a tree at night.
A dragonfly. There were lots, some others were huge, but almost impossible to photograph with my camera.
A nice boa my wife spotted first.
We also saw lots of birds and a few different monkeys. We saw a lot in a short time and had a great time. The rainforest is disappearing fast. I would recommend everyone try to see it. It's amazing.
Here is a typical habitat in the cloud forest at Mindo.
A juv T we found early one morning while hiking.
Another juv T.
A golofa pizzara beetle that I found.
I couldn't pass up showing these incredible flowers that were everywhere. This photo is not touched up.
Some large white legged millipedes.
This is the lodge we stayed in along the Napo River. No roads, just a 3 hour boat ride. This is Sani Lodge, run by the Kichwa Indians. An absolutely beautiful place.
Typical habitat in the Ecuadorian amazon lowland. This picture is taken from a tree tower.
Another shot of the same.
This avic was huge. easily 7+ inches.
These tarantulas were very common. I found many burrows almost everywhere we hiked. The T's only came out at night though and dashed into their tunnels with lightning speed as soon as I approached. I had to mark the burrows during the day and return at night creeping up to the burrow to see the Ts. They were mostly about 6 inch size.
I think this was a carnivorous plant. There was a lot of variety of plants.
Another, better shot of those common T's. There's a cricket in the same photo below the T. This T is about 7 inches. Most were smaller.
A 10 foot ant nest in a tree.
There were lots of giant 1 inch + black ants that had nasty stingers. We found nests of these near the bases of small trees.
Leaf cutter ants were very common. At night there paths were much busier and widened to 2 feet in some spots.
A cool grasshopper.
A leaf mimic grasshopper.
A common millipede. I love these guys.
These 8 inch millipedes were very common along paths at night. I could have collected a hundred in 5 minutes.
A colorful beetle.
Another interesting beetle.
A callipogon beetle, almost 4 inches without the antennae.
Lots of different cockroaches. This one caught my eye. It's about 3 inches.
A nephila spider on our cabin. It had a three foot wide web.
A land snail shell, yes, land snail.
We saw a lot of tailless whipscorpions. Most were about 7-8 inches with the whips.
A 3-4 inch phasmid.
In this picture there is a huge communal spider colony. The web is in the lower left corner and was easily 5 feet wide with a ten foot webbed brace going up into the tree to the right. I got up close and saw thousands of bright red spiders each about 1/2 inch. There were several large grasshoppers caught in the web and each one had 50 spiders feeding on it.
A sleeping butterfly. I think its a morpho.
We canoed some small rivers, which put me in heaven.
Some turtles along a lagoon.
A pitviper, beautiful, but dangerous.
We did a little piranha fishing, which was fun.
An iguana on a tree at night.
A dragonfly. There were lots, some others were huge, but almost impossible to photograph with my camera.
A nice boa my wife spotted first.
We also saw lots of birds and a few different monkeys. We saw a lot in a short time and had a great time. The rainforest is disappearing fast. I would recommend everyone try to see it. It's amazing.
) I'll try to post some pics from there too. That was also an amazing trip.
