Pahuachiro Caño, Casual & Yanayacu Pucate Rivers
This morning was our first pre-breakfast outing of the week. We went out to explore one of the many Marañon River tributaries; a beautiful one known as Pahuachiro Caño. This black water creek was an excellent place to be introduced to the Upper Amazon rain forest.
It did not take long until our naturalist guides started to point out many different creatures. One of them, a Southern Tamandua, was hanging from a tree. This rarely seen mammal, which is a medium-sized anteater, belongs to the Edentate family, which means animals with no teeth, sloths and armadillos belong to the same family. This has been a very elusive encounter and for the very first time we are able to post a good picture of this rare mammal in our Daily Expedition Reports. As we were enjoying watching this beautiful animal we learned that they feed on termites and ants as well. The juvenile tamandua was very friendly allowing us to take many pictures.
As we continued upriver we also spotted two Three-toed Sloths and many river birds such as: a Speckled Chachalaca, a fishing hawk, a Masked crimson Tanager, an Amazonian Umbrella bird, a Striated heron, and many others. On our return we also spotted some bromeliads, these plants can hold up to a gallon of water from which toucans and rodents, among other animals, drink water. These epiphyte plants are not parasites for they do not cause damage to the plants they live on, they bromeliads nutrients transported by air. The latter is a good example of a symbiotic relationship in the rain forest.
Right after breakfast we continued our exploration in the rain forest near Casual, with a two-and-a-half mile walk along the rain forest, this time we had a very close encounter with many creatures that are endemic or native to this kind of vegetation. Some of the main sightings included the Owl butterfly, frogs, bats, caiman lizards, lots of insects, and many different species of plants, which are used as medicine by local native people.
For the afternoon we went out in our skiff boat to explore Yanayacu and Pucate Rivers and many other small ones in the same area. It was a great afternoon with spectacular sightings of rodents, herons, egrets, hawks, bats, flycatchers, and many other creatures. One bird species, in particular, took our attention because of its ability to walk in water, the Wattled Jacana. It is locally known as “Jesus bird.” Later on we learned from our guides that this bird has big webfeet and they can, in fact, walk only on water plants. At the distance it really looked as if they were walking in the water’s surface. It is amazing how nature can provide such tools to these creatures in order to survive.
