Amazon Small World, Colombia

Night Hike Number Two, near the borders of Colombia, Peru and Brazil, revealed ever more critters. (Find more little critters at this earlier blog post.)
But let's be honest, we all want to see the spiders.

The tarantulas come first.


Maybe because this night hike was in the late January rainy season, and the ground was often soaked (better for the spiders?).  Or maybe we got lucky.


I'm told tarantulas are harmless to humans.  Here a Colombian friend demonstrates.


But I'm not so sure.  Here's what I remember from biology class...

Not all spiders were as cute and cuddly.  Here's an Amazon whip spider (Amblypygi); a clawed spiders without scorpion tail or poison.  Perfectly harmless.  This is Ted's hand holding one.  Ted came down with significant nausea soon thereafter.  Coincidence? Sure...



Not every spider's a man-eater...






This spider might be waiting for the larvae inside the protective froth to emerge in time for dinner.


This guy didn't wait, and he showed up for our dinner.


Or maybe to stalk this super-tiny mantis perched on a dinner glass.


It doesn't take long to realize a major difference between the Amazon and Galapagos.

• In the Galapagos, most or birds land animals don't prey on each other.
• In the Amazon everything is under attack, and is attacking everything else.

A butterfly looks tasty.

Perhaps dinner for this poisonous frog.

A chameleon waits his turn in line.

After dinner, it's time to lay your eggs.

This fist-sized female will use the cleaver at her thorax's end to slice into a plant and lay her eggs.

 She's closely related to this North American species...

 Cousins clustered on a nearby street corner looking for some action.

Of course, there's always someone at the apex of the food chain...
Our hero, Little Peep, now goes by "Poco Peep".