The Amazon plays hosts to a multitude of insects. While we were there, we saw new bugs everyday, especially when we did night hikes through the rainforest. At night, bugs come out from their cover of leaves and sunlight, and are a macro-photographer’s dream. They’ll often just sit there, through multiple flashes. Please don’t expect any expertise on these guys, but I hope you enjoy the pictures.

There are some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful moths and butterflies constantly flying around the forest. Pretty much every color of the spectrum is represented, but unfortunately, getting pictures of any of these specimens is a test of will, as they rarely stop moving. Above is a moth, resting at night. Of course, all of these moths/butterflies have to come from somewhere, and so there is also a large variety of caterpillars munching away at the foliage.

It’s near impossible to know for sure which species these caterpillars are without fully allowing them to complete their life cycle. These two guys below wouldn’t sit still much at all. They were constantly munching on leaves as you can see in the picture.

I was told that the caterpillar below can leave a nasty sting if you handle his spines. Nevertheless, I thought the little guy to be quite pretty.

If there’s anything that never stops in the forest, it’s the leaf cutter ants. These guys will march right over your foot if you put it in their path. When you find a trail, it seems like it goes on forever. These ants truly are magnificent workers.

Not exactly a bug, I know, but we saw a few examples of snails in the forest, so I wanted to fit them in somewhere. Nothing too exotic, but pretty neat.

Spiders, spiders, spiders. There are so many different types of types in the forest. Wolf spiders, tarantulas, tons of different spiders in webs. Fortunately, they make great pictures!

I like the yellow on this guy’s legs. Probably means he’s dangerous or something.

This is a really interesting catydid below. The white feathers on its back end are made of a waxy substance that turns to dust if you touch it. It’s used as a defense mechanism, much like how a lizards’ tail disconnects, allowing it time to get away from a predator.

There are quite a few odd shaped bugs in the forest.

Here’s another odd-shaped one. He blends in nicely with the tree though.

Then there’s a whole smattering of leaf-camouflaged bugs out there. Here’s one catydid. That notch at the top is not a bite or injury. It’s naturally like that so that they blend in better with the other broken leaves on the ground.

This is another camouflaged grasshopper. This is one of my favorite shots that I got — even his eye is camouflaged!

Then there are more brightly colored catydid, such as the one below with a bright yellow line down its back. I often had to cut out their long antennae from the photos because they were so long.

Another catydid that I thought was very pretty.

Of course, there is a darker side of the rainforest. Where damp environments are, so are fungi, and parasitic nasties. This particular grasshopper had the unfortunate luck of getting infected by a parasitic fungus. It slowly grows inside its host, and eventually breaks through the skin, killing its subject and feeding on its remains. Fun, huh?

Here’s some sort of beetle that I found interesting. All of the mosses on the trees provide ample habitat of a wide variety of bugs.

These millipedes were all over the trails in various places. If you startle them, they will ball up into a tight little ball, protecting their soft underside with their hard armored exoskeleton.

This nasty looking thing is called a whiptail scorpion. While looking quite terrifying, it’s actually completely harmless to humans. Infact, we took turns putting this guy on each other’s faces to get that “make mom scream” photo for the trip. We basically considered them really ugly daddy long-legs.

And of course, the Amazon has wasps just like any other place.

I hope you enjoyed my bug pictures. Please don’t use any of them without my permission first. Thank you!

The Amazon is a bird watcher’s paradise. You wouldn’t be in the Amazon if you didn’t hear the loud squawking of mccaw parrots as they flew overhead. It’s really amazing to see these colorful birds out in the wild, as opposed to in a pet store cage. As loud as the mccaws are, the green parrots are even noisier, particularly when you’re trying to sleep!

Besides parrots, I think the toucan is the quintessential Amazon bird that everyone knows. This may be in large part due to Fruit Loops marketing campaign, but nevertheless, there’s no wonder as to why people admire these birds. This particular bird below flew up to this tree, about 50 feet away from the platform I was standing on, about 5 stories from the forest floor. It then proceeded to fly overhead to a different tree where 2 other toucans squabbled with each other before all 3 took off. What colorful animals!

There are numerous birds on the water that prey on fish or other critters that become vulnerable on the water’s edge. I haven’t a clue what this bird is below, but we saw a fair number of this type around.

Even the Amazon has a common duck. While these ducks are slightly different than the common ducks all over North America, their general behavior is the same.

These yellow-bodied birds can be seen all over the Amazon. We saw especially large numbers of them when we were on the boat, making the trip down the Amazon river to the Rio Orosa.

With all of the insects in the Amazon, it goes to figure that there would be plenty of woodpeckers around.

As I mentioned, we just got back from the Amazon Rainforest, about 10 hours by boat from Iquitos, Peru, on the Rio Orosa. The river and forest here is beyond breathtaking. The biodiversity of trees and plants is probably impossible to catalog. There are plants growing on plants, which are covered in lichens, and attached to trees. Our tour operator told us that they recently invited a Ph.d. student down to complete their thesis work, and with approximately 650 trees surveyed, over 500 species of trees were identified, including one tree, “Lonely Jorge,” which is the only known living tree of its kind in the world. They don’t know how it got there, or if anymore of the species exist. Amazing stuff.

The preserve where we stayed has caretakers, who maintain a number of trails through the forest, putting in log stairs such as the ones below. Most of the trails, however, are not are nicely established as these, which is probably a good thing to get a more authentic feel.

Sometimes, our trails would take us right over top one of these huge ant hills. Some of the larger anthills that we saw would be several feet high, and could fill a large living room in your standard American home. Fortunately, walking over these mounds did not seem to invite any punishment from the ants. Maybe we just got lucky, finding the “friendly ants?”

Down the Rio Orosa a little ways, there is a small tributary where huge stands of banyan trees stand. We were not able to reach the largest of these due to low water, but our guides told us that there exists a single banyan tree that stretches over an entire acre of land by itself.

All throughout the rainforest, little creeks and streams flow toward the larger rivers. I didn’t get a chance to survey to many of these for fish, but I believe our guide pulled out a few killies from one creek similar to this.

As I mentioned before, nothing exists by itself in the forest. Every tree trunk shares itself with any number of plants or lichens. There’s at least two species growing on this trunk below.

Below is just another example of the ferns/mosses that grow on these trees.

I just liked this picture because it shows a number of different trees, all growing within close proximity to one another. I don’t remember if this was in one of the “devil’s gardens” or not, but it’s quite possible since there does not appear to be much undergrowth. A “devil’s garden” is created when a certain kind of ant decides to take up home among a particular group of trees. These ants produce and inject citric acid into every “unwanted” plant that comes into their garden, thus killing it. Tasting an ant, they taste like lemons — I wonder why?

The sun comes and goes very quickly near the equator. I watched the sunset in a tower overlooking the canopy of the trees.

Yesterday, I just got back from Peru, where my wife and I spent about 2 weeks – 1 week in the Amazon rainforest, and another in the Andes. We went on a “photography tour” with Margarita Tours, which is an excellent company that I would highly recommend. Our photography leader, Dr. David Schleser, also leads subsequent fish collecting trips, and when he learned of my interest, he scheduled a sample fish collecting expedition to let me see what the week-long expedition is like.

I must say, that collecting in the Amazon is a little bit different than our Florida collecting trip. Take away the boat ramps and add a lot of mud; like waist deep mud. On the plus side, in a single seine attempt, we probably pulled out 20 different species of fish, including some beautiful angelfish, and even a red-bellied piranha. There were plenty of catfish, who spines invariably poked your hands, and got tied up in the nets. There appeared to be a few different types of characins too.

This is really the only aquarium-related part of my trip, but as I gather together some of my pictures, I think I will deviate from the aquarium theme, and just post some of my rainforest experiences that I think will have a broader appeal. Keep posted for more soon.

After coming home from an often-frequented thrift shop, my wife announced that she had bought me an aquarium book. Immediately, when looking at the cover, it’s obvious that the book was dated, but with plants on the cover, I figure it’s at least worth a look.

Indeed, published in 1952, the author describes how to build a tank from scratch using plywood, glass, and various “cements.” Then, he describes heating your tank using gas and oils, and describes setting the proper flame height to establish the proper temperature. Wow, and I thought I had it hard with my equipment!

Despite this, I continue reading, and to my surprise, there’s a whole chapter on aquatic plants. Plants reproduce by photosynthesis, true. Builders sand is not a good substrate because it compacts, true. Light is important, true. Fertilization will be taken care of by the fish, okay not entirely false, but still reading. Then I come to a section listing possible plants for an aquarium.

As you would expect, they were growing Cabomba caroliniana, but they also grew Cryptocoryne cordata, C. griffithii, Riccia Fluitans, and Utricularia, among others.

Then, the chapter continues on to describe how to layout an aquarium, using rocks and plants to form a aesthetically pleasing look. Use rocks that are well weathered, and avoid different types of rocks in the same aquarium, as it will not look natural. Don’t position the rock in the center of the aquarium, instead offset the rock a little bit to the right or left. Then, use plants to form an nice background around the rocks.

It seems that we’re not as advanced as we think we are in the aquarium hobby today. Sure, we might have the luxury of flow-controlled canister filters, fine tuned in-line electric heaters, and an assortment of manufactured substrates, but at the end of the day, we’re still in the business of making a tank that looks nice using a variety of plants and hardscape materials. Our plant selection may be larger than our grandparents’, but it seems appropriate that the art form of aquarium keeping are continuing from generation to generation.

Here’s an updated photo of my 2.5G. As you can see, the Crassula helmsii is really starting to take off — maybe too much so. The downoi is looking good, and I’ve removed the Blyxa japonica from the back right. I’m debating whether or not it needs something back there or not. Let me know what you think! 🙂

As I’ve mentioned this spring, I put frogbite out in my pond to help cover the water’s surface. An interesting thing happens out in the pond, that doesn’t usually happen inside in my aquariums — it gets huge! The roots burrow into the substrate, which when supply all the nutrients it needs to propel the leaves off of the water’s surface, and into the air. Usually, in the aquarium, the leaves have very little stem, and form a tight circular group at each node stretching across the surface. I’ve got stems that 4-5 inches long, standing upright with huge leaves on the end out in the pond.

Also, on the water surface, the underside of the leaves has a bulbous growth near the stem. When out of the water, this seems to disappear somewhat. There are still leaves growing across the surface, but as they age, they appear to extend toward the sky.

This, of course,  doesn’t seem to bother our newest inhabitant shown below, as he uses them for cover. Unlike his larger bullfrog cousin who is commonly seen sitting on the pond’s edge, he is a smaller frog, much like the ones I used to catch and release when I was growing up.

On Saturday, GWAPA held its meeting for July at Cristy’s house. Cristy has a tank with some really beautiful discuss in it. I don’t know much of anything about discus, besides that they’re more work to keep than I’m generally up for, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate their beauty. Take a look at how great they look with a lush planted background behind them. Nice fish!

I walked outside this morning to water our garden, and for the first time this year, a frog had come to visit us by our raised brick pond. Last year we had a pair of frogs that stayed with us all summer long, but I think they were a different variety than this guy. We have a fairly large runoff pond, full of cattails and bullfrogs in our neighborhood, but due to this years’ drought, I suspect that this little fellow decided to seek out a different watering hole.

As soon as I saw him, I ran back inside to grab my camera, and I must say that he was a very obliging photo subject. Originally, he was sitting on a fallen purple Torenia flower that was very distracting in my pictures. To my surprise, he allowed me to pull the flower out from under him, without him moving a muscle.

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated with frogs, ever since catching and releasing them from a small stream near my parent’s house growing up. They’re such colorful creatures, with an amazing life cycle. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

My small brick pond has been progressing quite nicely this summer. I’ve added quite a few plants than I didn’t have last summer including Pogostemon yatabeanus, Riccia fluitans, Pogostemon stellata var. ‘broad-leaf,’ and a few native Polygonum, Ludwigia, and Lysamachia species that I’ve collected locally. Endlers and cherry shrimp are the main occupants of the pond this year again.

I’ve got frogbite growing quite well, with extensive root systems forming below the increasingly large pads on the surface. I’m hoping that they’ll soon transform into large plants resembling water hyacinths. Hydrocotle is growing nicely, both above and below the surface. The most prolific grower so far this year is definitely the Pogostemon yatabeanus, which seems to thrive regardless of fertilization or water current.

The solar pump is still operating, but is opposed by the large mass of plant matter occupying most of the water surface. Nevertheless, while some algae is present, the water is very clear, and by and large, the plants are doing well. Now, I’m just waiting for the sun to induce some of these plants to start flowering. I may start dosing extra phosphate to try and encourage the same thing. No doubt, the Endlers are producing plenty of ammonia to feed the plants.

I’ve only dosed a small amount of PMDD fertilizer roughly once a week, instead topping off the water in the pond a few times each week. The pond seems to have attracted a fair number of wasps and yellow jackets this year, which I haven’t yet been able to explain. Fortunately, none of these bugs have bothered much with me yet. As usual, birds enjoy bathing in the pond, and stealing the occasional Endler. So, for me it’s provided a great center of attraction for me to watch plants grow, birds play, and insects bugger about.