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About
the photos...
Wedding of the
Waters -- Allan Marshall treads water at the
meeting of the Rio Negro (black river) and Amazon
(the yellow --more like brown color -- is due to
silt from the Peruvian Andes).
Giant 'Queen'
Lily Pads have 2-1/2" sharp thorns underneath
to keep the fish from eating them.
Cronin holds a baby
SLOTH. They are very slow-moving, nocturnal
creatures that live in the canopy in the Amazon
rain forest.
The woolly
monkey, Lagothrix lagothricha, is one of the
largest the South American primates. It has a short
coat -- varying in shade from sandy yellow through
brown and dark gray. The coat acts as camouflage
and protection from the weather and insects. They
are found in the middle and upper Amazon basin to
the west of the rivers Negro and Tapajos. They
spend most of their time high in the the tree
canopy and rarely on the forest floor.
Woolly monkeys have
prehensile tail. The tail serves as a fifth limb,
helping to balance the creature and keep it from
falling. It can support the monkeys' full weight,
leaving its hands and feet available to collect
food, etc. They also have human-like hands, but do
not have unopposable thumbs. Their feet do have
opposable big toes for gripping branches with their
feet while the monkey gathers food. They are
particularly sensitive to the color green, which
allows them distinguish between many different
shades found in the leaves and trees. Live in
colonies varying from 5 to 40 or more members. The
woolly monkey's natural predator is the harpy
eagle.
Amazonas
flag -- Along with the flag for the country of
Brazil, each of the 26 states has it's own flag.
This is the flag of the state of Amazonas. The 26
stars represent the first 26 municipalities within
the state. Amazonas now has 66
municipalities.
Opera House
-- Completed in 1896 after 15 years of
construction. The boom of the Rubber Trade gave
Manhaus several powerful Rubber barons that wanted
the best Europe had to offer. Every piece for the
Opera House was brought from Europe sculptures,
marble, iron work, Venitian glass chandeliers, ect.
The only thing from Brazil was the wood which was
sent to Europe to be worked into chairs for seating
& other carved embellishments. The Opera House
still hosts some of the world's finest opera
companies visiting in March & April. The Opera
House was completely refurbished recently and was
painted Pink again which was its original color.
Aruana
(Arowana or monkey fish) -- This can be determined
to be a surface feeder because of the upward
pointing mouth and big eyes at the top of the head.
They eat frogs, spiders beetles, eels, and other
animals on the surface or near it. They can jump
clear of the water to catch prey in the trees. It
has a bony tongue which leads to its scientific
name of Osteoglossum (osteo ˆ bony, glossum-
tongue). Up to 3 feet long and 5kg (11 pounds).
Small ones are also found in pet stores. Females
will hold their eggs in their mouth until they
hatch to protect them from being eaten.
Two species of
Tiger Shovel nose catfish -- Bottom dweller
-- Local names surubin and caparari. Small eyes
because they don't need them. They use the feelers
to find their way and to find food. Up to 15kg (33
pounds) these are about 5kg (11pounds). Small
specimens are found in pet stores but are very
expensive. This fish market starts at 11:00pm and
continues through the night until the late morning.
There can be up to 150 species of fish in this
market at one time. These are considered some the
best eating of the catfish.
Du Du -- We
have been lucky enough to have one of the best
fishing and collecting guides to escort our trip.
His name is Edwardo, but he likes to be called Du
Du. He has been collecting fishes for many years
and knows almost every fish in the Amazon region.
He started as a collector for the aquarium
industry, but now works to collect fishes for
scientific purposes. Du Du has probably collected
more new species of fishes than anybody in Brazil.
Du Du showed us how to make fishing lures from wood
of the rubber tree. It takes quite a long time to
cut, carve and whittle them to the right
shape.
Blue Candiru
and it was about 6 inches long. These fishes fill
the same role as Hagfish and Lamprey in North
America as eaters of dead and dying animals. One of
the unusual traits of these fish is that they
follow faint sources of ammonia to find fish. They
are attracted to the ammonia that is released from
the gills and then bite chunks out of the gills of
the unsuspecting fish. They are considered
dangerous to humans as they will follow the same
smell that comes from people when they urinate in
the water. Smaller specimens can enter the urethra
and cause excruciating pain because the backward
pointing spines lodge the fish in place.
OUCH!!!!
Pictured
are three species of piranha that were
caught in about an hours fishing. There are black
piranhas, elongate piranhas and white piranhas. Can
you tell which one is which? Note also that most of
the tails of these fish have bits missing. That is
usually from other piranhas biting at tails. Most
of these are small specimens. During a separate
collecting trip using nets, we caught a baby
piranha that was only half an inch long.
We found a tree
frog while out in the canoe. This is one of the
largest species of tree grogs here. It looks brown
right now but it can change its color to match it's
surroundings. When they are in the leaves they are
green.
Black
Piranha -- This is the largest species of
piranha but it is not considered the most
dangerous. You can see the impressive teeth in
these guys and they are extremely sharp and set in
powerful jaws. When piranha bite, it is a fast
chopping motion that removes a chunk of flesh in a
fraction of a second. They occur in schools of up
to thousands of individuals.
We did some
sampling of a sand bank in the Rio Branco (white
river). We used a seine net (in the picture
above) to sweep around a section of shallow sandy
bottomed water and then drew it onto the shore. It
was very productive and we found many species of
fishes.
We found one more
of the seven perils of the Amazon today, the
freshwater stingray. In the tray shown is a
china ray. There are several species but this grows
to the largest size. The one shown here is only
about 15 inches across but they can get up to 4
feet across. They are active predators of fishes.
All of the freshwater rays have spines, called
barbs, on thier tails. This species has a very
short tail and and a tiny barb, but it is still
capable of inflicting a very painful sting.
Du Du throwing a
spear at an abandoned fishing camp along the
Amazon river.
Brazil nut
farmer cracking open a brazil nut outer shell with
hgis machete that contains up to 30 brazil nuts.
Brazil is the only place these can grow because a
unique species of bumble bee spreads the pollen to
the flowers to produce the nut.
Maniock
crackers being cooked on a 4 ft. pan over an
open fire.
Cronin standing in
the floating ornamental fish distribution
center. There are 20 million fish that go
through either this one or another distribution
center each year. They distribute cardinal tetras,
angel fish, discus fish, knife fish, various
catfish and more...
Jacare rana
(fake caiman) skinkish
Big headed
turtle, Yellow headed side neck
turtle
LeeAnn Chou, Allan
Marshall, and Scott Dowd test there bow and
arrows that are used to hunt turtles. (No
turtles were harmed in this picture)
Cronin
fishing for Discus, cardinal Tetras hatchet
fish, pencil fish, knife fish.
Cardinal tetra
school
Gladiator Frog
-- Tree frog with sticky webbed fingers.
Cronin with
sloth during night time outing.
Doug cruises
through rapids of the rio negro...
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