I'm going to the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador!!!

[Kaimetsu]

Hello Arachnoboards, i've joined you because i am going to be spending a week in Ecuador in March including 5 days at a place called Sacha lodge in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador, one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth! As an avid lover of all wildlife i am compiling a list of animals to photograph and study during my stay and i'm here looking for your help.
I know there are many different species of beautiful tarantulas and millipedes in this area and i was hoping you guys could give me some advice on how to safely observe tarantulas without stressing them out or getting bitten myself. Also if anyone could direct me towards a comprehensive field guide to ecuadoran tarantulas or other animals i would be grateful. In return i will share the pictures from my trip with all of you.
This is a photo album i found of someone else who visited this lodge once and took some great pictures. http://www.wideview.it/travel/Ecuador_2005/en_07.htm
From browsing these boards i have learned that the spider with red hairs on it's abdomen could be the Ecuadoran species of Avicularia. I don't know much about tarantulas so any advice you guys can provide would be useful to me.
For my trip i am hoping to observe and photograph many species of parrots, parakeets, toucans, monkeys, lizards, frogs including poison dart frogs, salamanders, Caimans (including the black caiman that can grow as big as the american alligator!), bushmasters, vipers, (i know better than to get too close to these last two!) tree boas, the green anaconda(i'm not sure if the anaconda's range extends this far though), leaf cutter ants, and of course tarantulas and millipedes. It would be amazing if i could see some of the terrestrial mammals that occur in this area such as the big cats but i know how rare and enigmatic these guys can be.
Anyways sorry if i seem to be rambling but i'm so excited and any tips or information i can get will be helpful.

 

[skippy]

you might want to bring one of these:
http://www.herpsupplies.com/product.cfm?groupid=12295&id=MW-PFH40RS

 

[Kaimetsu]

you might want to bring one of these:
http://www.herpsupplies.com/product.cfm?groupid=12295&id=MW-PFH40RS

Something like that would definitely help protect my fingers from all of the beautiful but bitey little fellas i hope to encounter.
Anyways i see in the rules that we arnt supposed to give specific locations in order to help protect these places from the illegal pet trade, and the Sacha lodge is easy to locate. But it's also a well protected tourist destination and the owners of the property go to great lengths to patrol and protect their property from collectors so i hope it's ok to reveal what i find there. Indeed the owners of the property themselves advertise many of the exotic animals that can be found and use the tourist revenue to help protect the wildlife there.

 

[skippy]

the pics i saw were an avic of some kind and what looks like Acanthoscurria chacoana which aren't too hard to find cb as far as i know so i think it'll be ok

 

[Kaimetsu]

the pics i saw were an avic of some kind and what looks like Acanthoscurria chacoana which aren't too hard to find cb as far as i know so i think it'll be ok

Cool, so i need a little Amazon rainforest tarantula 101, avic i know is short for avicularia which is a genus of tarantulas. From what i can tell there are two different species of avic that i can find in the rainforest in ecuador, Avicularia huriana which has red hair on it's abdomen and Avicularia purpurea which seems to have purple hair on it's thorax. They are both vibrant looking and i would love to see them. Acanthoscurria chacoana looks like another impressive guy to look for.
From what i gather their are two types of rainforest tarantulas, terrestrial and arboreal. At the very least i think avicularia huriana is terrestrial because all the pictures i've seen of it are in burrows on the forest floor, likely to hide from predators and ambush prey from. Acanthoscurria chacoana looks like hes hanging out on the side of a building does that mean hes arboreal? Which species are arboreal and what are some good ways to spot them? Links to imformative threads or websites would be great. Thanks for the help arachnophiles!

 

[skippy]

pretty sure that all avics are arboreal-you might want to just take pics and identify later because there are SO MANY different sp down thattaway

 

[Kaimetsu]

So i went on my trip last march and as a naturalist it was the single greatest experience of my life! I guess i kind of forgot about posting here, i did say i'd post pics here. I took literally thousands of pictures while in the Amazon so i'll only upload some of the animal highlights for now, hopefully you guys can help identify some of them.
The biodiversity of this place is beyond comprehension, it is wondrous beyond my wildest expectations. Every single time i set foot outside, every morning, every single stroll from the cabins to the restaurant i found new things. It felt like i could live there for years and still discover new species there on a regular basis. I found almost everything on my list of things i wanted to see plus thousands of other species. I really cannot hype the power and greatness of this place enough.
Since this is the arachnoboards i feel an obligation to post my arachnid pics first, then the other arthropods then everything else. There were several tarantulas who made their homes near the cabins and dock area, so knowing where to find them they were easy to observe.
This guy had his home just off the dock, the guide identified him as a pink toe tarantula, but one of the guys i was with has one as a pet and said they look different so maybe the guide was wrong or their are different subspecies of pinktoes or something.

This one i had to zoom in on alot so theres not as much detail but their was definitely a purplish hue so i think this is the ecuadorian purple. I was lucky enough to watch this one catch a grasshopper and drag it into her web once.

I found this one on a lightpost behind one of the cabins on my last night there, very beautiful colorations can anyone identify her?

Those are the only tarantulas i was able to get decent pictures of, but here are some other spiders.
These guys were small but i was told they had much nastier bites then the tarantulas.

I was told this one is related to wolf spiders but grows to twice the size of the average tarantula, this one was at least the size of the tarantulas i had seen.

Not sure what this was our guide indicated it is related to daddy longlegs(harvestmen), it was much larger than any daddy longlegs where i live(dutchess county, ny).

The only scorpion i ever saw, he was just hanging out on a leaf on the trail.

tailless whip scorpion. This guy was definitely on my list of things i wanted to see, hes eating a cricket in this pic so you can't really see the awesome spikes on his claws.

Thats it for now i'll post some more when i have time. I guess i'll do insects and millipedes next. If anyone knows the common and scientific names for these guys please share.

 

[lilmoonrabbit]

Wow, it's pretty awesome to see these guys in their natural habitat! Thanks so much for sharing them with us! Hope you had a blast! It must have been an awesome experience

 

[Warren Bautista]

Wow, beautiful bugs.
I especially like the oppilione (daddy long legs).
They do get MUCH bigger in the rainforest.
I just saw you live in Dutchess county, I live in Orange county, lol.

 

[hamfoto]

Very cool!

The top T is a Tapinauchenius sp., the 3rd is Avicularia hirschii (more than likely), and the "wolf spider" is a Phoneutria sp.

Chris

 

[Warren Bautista]

I'm guessing the scorp is a species of Tityus maybe?

 

[GoTerps]

Like Chris mentioned.

Theraphosid #1 Tapinauchenius sp. (Likely T. subcaeruleus)
Theraphosid #2 Avicularia sp. (Likely A. purpurea)
Theraphosid #3 Mature male Avicualria hirschii

Eric

Edit...PS. Cool pictures and thanks a lot for sharing!

 

[Kaimetsu]

I just saw you live in Dutchess county, I live in Orange county, lol.

Hi neighbor.

Very cool!

The top T is a Tapinauchenius sp., the 3rd is Avicularia hirschii (more than likely), and the "wolf spider" is a Phoneutria sp.

Chris

According to google Phoneutria sp. is the brazilian wandering spider, it's really exciting that i was so close to something so dangerous.

Thanks everyone for the identifications, I'm gonna post a few more of my tarantula pics then i'll move onto my myriapod and insect pics.

First a few more of the A. Purpurea.

These next three are of the tarantula catching a grasshopper and dragging it into her home, she was moving fast and i was really lucky to get any pics of it at all.

Another pic of what you guys identified as Avicularia hirschii, zoomed out a little.

Heres another tarantula but i doubt it's a good enough pic to identify it with.

Time to start posting myriapods. I never saw any centipedes, but their were tons of huge millipedes. They were all over the place and i got tons of pictures of them, i'll try to only post the best ones.

Insects are next.

 

[Philth]

Great pics, looks like a good time. Thanks for sharing. Is that a spiderling on the tree at about 4 o'clock on the pic ? or is it just the coloration of the tree ?

Later, Tom

 

[Kaimetsu]

Great pics, looks like a good time. Thanks for sharing. Is that a spiderling on the tree at about 4 o'clock on the pic ? or is it just the coloration of the tree ?

I don't think so, it's probably just part of the tree or a small plant or something. I spent alot of time watching this particular tarantula and never saw any spiderlings.

I'll be going away for a week starting in the morning so i won't be able to post anymore pics til i get back. I'm gonna post some insect pics in a few minutes before i goto bed.

 

[Kaimetsu]

One other story about tarantulas. When i first arrived at the Sacha lodge immediately after i put my stuff in my cabin i went exploring hoping to find something, at one point in the evening after dark fell i was a short distance from the cabins on one of the trails looking for stuff. I had yet to find any tarantulas. It was pritty much dark already and i found a fleishmans glass frog and was getting pictures of him when i heard a girls scream in the distance, it was probably the loudest scream i've ever heard.
When i got back to the cabins i found out one of the girls found a tarantula under her bed and ended up throwing a shoe at it and killing it. I was more than a little upset by this and refered to this girl for the rest of the trip as the tarantula murderer.

I'm gonna post my wasp and ant pictures next. One thing that was made clear to our group early on by our guides is that the real danger when moving through the rainforest comes from the wasps and the ants. Sure the poisonous snakes in this area are lethal (ferdelance, bushmaster, palm viper) but they tend to be few and far between and they usually run away when they hear people coming just like any other snake. On the other hand conga ants (bullet ants) are everywhere and it would be easy to accidently lean against something and get bitten. I saw a bullet ant within minutes of getting off the boat and i could find them just about anytime i looked.

The wasps are dangerous because they have very small nests like this one that are under leaves, it would be easy to accidently brush against it and piss them off. I'm told these wasps specifically target your eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.

I'm pritty sure this is a wasp, it looks just like the the wasp in the pictures below it.

This is fascinating, this wasp has apparently paralyzed this roach with it's sting or bite and is now dragging it to a nest or burrow of some kind. The wasp will then lay it's eggs next to or on the roach, when the eggs hatch the baby wasps will eat the roach alive. Our guide indicated that hes never seen this behavior with a roach before but he has seen them carrying tarantulas.

Unfortunately i have to get to bed and i don't have time to show off my ant pics. But for ants you can look forward to pictures of bullet ants including a bullet ant queen, leaf cutter ants, and army ants when i get back in a week. I also have tons of amphibian pics including two species of poison dart frog, i have some lizard pics mostly anoles. I got some pics of spectacled caiman. One of the groups was lucky enough to find a ten foot green anaconda which the native guide caught and let everyone hold (it crapped on them as a defense mechanism though and apparently smelled worse than skunk haha), i wasnt their sadly but i can get ahold of someones pic of it. I didnt get many decent bird pics but i got plenty of mammal pics mostly monkeys. I saw tons of squirrel monkeys, and some red howler monkeys and pygmy marmosets.

 

[hamfoto]

I don't know...that certainly does look like a spiderling down there at 4 o'clock...

Good eye, Tom!

C

 

[barabootom]

I don't know...that certainly does look like a spiderling down there at 4 o'clock...

Good eye, Tom!

C

I agree. It's a baby avic.

 

[smallara98]

I agree. It's a baby avic.

I agree with you too . You can tell cause of how dark it is , and the pink toes .