AMAZON

May 2005

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DS photos courtesy of Dirk Stevenson

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Returning after our long march I gratefully head straight for the restrooms. I enter the bright green building, close the door, and sit down. Upon finishing I flush the toilet, but, disturbingly, not everything goes down. A piece is stuck to the side of the bowl just below the rim. I flush again, when to my horror, the stubborn remnant suddenly moves and comes flying out of the bowl, landing on my leg!

Happens all the time, so I’m told.

Toilet Bowl Frog

aka Plain Narrow-Headed Treefrog

Scinax cruentomma

The middle of the day was too hot for herping, so afternoons we usually hung around the compound, resting in the shade or walking by the water. Sometimes we’d discover herps anyway (as evidenced by my bathroom experience) moving about the buildings or grounds of the field station.

Here’s a sampling:

	DS

Common Big-Headed Rain Frog Ischnocnema quixensis	Giant Marine Toad Bufo marinus

Bridled Forest Gecko Gonatodes humeralis

Many-Striped Treefrog Hyla haraldschultzi	Turnip-Tailed Gecko Thecadactylus rapicaudus

Slender Treefrog

Scarthyla ostinodactyla

Down by the boats were muddy flats where a variety of herps make their living by the water’s edge.

Collared Earth Snake Atractus cf. collaris	Banded Neotropical Watersnake Helicops angulatus

Helicops come in two phases: nasty and nastier.

DS

A pair of Jungle frogs found in the same swampy area:

	DS
Warty Jungle Frog Leptodactylus rhodonotus	Black-Thighed Jungle Frog Leptodactylus stenodema

One of my great pleasures was to go kayaking in the late afternoon. When we arrived the water was still high enough to explore the vareza, low-lying forest that remains flooded for a portion of each year. Our trip coincided with the transitional period, between the end of rainy season and the start of (relatively) drier weather, when the river begins to recede. By the end of our week the Rio Oroso had fallen about six feet, exposing the forest floor where we had been boating.

On one tall tree surrounded by water was a pair of Plicas, lizards that raced around vertically as if they were flat on the ground. We saw them in the same place nearly every day until the water level dropped and ended the tree’s isolation.

Collared Tree Runner Tropidurus (Plica) plica

I often stayed on the river till nightfall, watching hundreds of large bats flying overhead, or listening to the “pffff …” of pink dolphins exhaling, catching a faint glimpse as they rolled and disappeared into the darkness.

AMAZON

May 2005

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Herp Trips