Illinois Swamp Rattlers, revisited

Some of the most frequent questions I'm asked, in regard to Illinois herpetology, relate to the eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus).  Where are they found?  And how are they doing?  

Where are they found?   The massasauga has been almost completely wiped out of the state, and today is known from a handful of tiny fragments of habitat in one county.  Is it possible they still exist elsewhere?  Yes.  Illinois is a large state with lots of tiny patches of wet prairie or meadows.  Some of the more recently known populations (that haven't been sighted in years) occurred in short stretches of roadside ditches in the central part of the state.  Certainly there are other ditches like that elsewhere.  But without thoughtful management, those ditches go bad quickly.  They fill in with invasive brush, or they are mowed too frequently or too short (or both).  Patches of wet prairie left to remain uncultivated on private property may harbor massasaugas, but since the little rattlers are federally protected, most landowners wouldn't speak a word about snakes they may have seen for fear of what they may consider government overreach.  So, at this moment in time, we only know of the precious few that garner attention from both hopeful conservationists and bitter developers.

How are they doing?  Well, they are not doing well in Illinois, which may be good news or bad news depending on who's asking. However, they may not be doing as bad as we thought in previous years.  Recent studies suggest that the remaining animals may not suffer from ill effects a lack of genetic diversity often causes. Some herpetologists feared that may might be a serious issue.  Snake fungal disease, while prevalent among these remaining animals, appears to present itself mildly (so far). While good news, it doesn't change the fact that the metapopulation is highly fragmented and the sites are small; the remaining animals are vulnerable to environmental stochasticity and catastrophic events, either manmade or natural.  

The biologists working with wild massasaugas in Illinois are keenly aware of the snake's susceptibility and work hard to manage the remaining habitat in order to give the animals their best chance at long, productive lives.  Areas chock-full of invasive autumn olive and honeysuckle have been cleared, offering a chance for the snakes to migrate and spread out a bit.  And each year, enough new young animals are found to indicate that recruitment is occurring at good rates.

Among the "regulars" that have been studying Illinois' massasaugas for varying lengths of time is Joey Cannizarro, a Chicago-area native with a name very similar to mine though he is way more handsome.  Joey wrapped up his Master's on grey treefrogs and is in the early stages of pursuing his PhD.  I first met him a few years ago while in Graham's crayfish snake habitat near me - he was accompanied by Nathan Kutok.  We have kept in touch but not participated in any real field-related herp activities, so his invite was enthusiastically accepted.

It was great to hit the field once again in search of massasaugas.  On this fair day in late April, we found six massasaugas and a small variety of other herps.

To some, simply a ditch.  To Joey Cannizarro (in background), a massasauga goldmine.  Note crayfish burrow in foreground.

One of roughly half a dozen eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina) seen. 

Fowler's toads (Anaxyrus fowleri) are always common around the bunkhouses.

Prairie kingsnake (Lampropeltis calligaster)

One of several racers (Coluber constrictor)

If you're lucky, you'll see this much massasauga exposed

Another, from right on top

It takes a trained eye to spot these (I could use more work)

A massasauga prior to gentle processing

In Search of the Virgin Islands Boa

tl;dr I didn't find a boa.

In fact, I didn't find a single snake of any species.

Granted, my trip to St. Thomas and to St. John was a family vacation and not a field herping trip.  But anyone who knows me well knows that even on family vacations I find time to rustle up some snakes or frogs.  Without a doubt, no one knows this as intimately as my own family, who often get dragged along in the overgrown fringes of vacationland time and time again.  

Look, I've never been a lay on the beach or sit around kind of guy.  There are far too many island endemics to search for.  But I digress.

So back to this boa.  In planning for the trip, I became near-obsessed with the Virgin Islands (VI) boa (Chilabothrus granti). Admittedly, I know very little about these and the other Caribbean boas, even though I've long been fascinated by them, their distribution, and the process by which speciation occurred among the archipelago.  There isn't a whole lot about these snakes available online and books on these groups of reptiles are out of print and exorbitantly expensive.  I found just enough to prepare for what I was hoping would be a successful endeavor, but instead I was met with a number of challenges that ultimately led to my failure.

Virgin Island tree boa (center, with other VI fauna) by Rene Villanueva Maldonado

The VI boa is one of a group of island boas spread out throughout the Antilles.  It is found in Puerto Rico and several of the Virgin Islands.  On St. Thomas, it is restricted to the far eastern side of the island, where the elevation is lower and the climate is drier.  Owing to these conditions, this part of the island has become heavily developed (the stunning beaches help too).  There are far fewer natural places for the boas to live now than there were even twenty or thirty years ago. On an episode of the Snake Talk podcast from 2024, herpetologist Dustin Smith estimated that the number of boas on St. Thomas to be about one hundred, with perhaps only ten being reproductively active. That is perilously low. However, I'm told by a friend and island boa researcher that the boas may be adapting reasonably well to development as long as it isn't too destructive (thanks, Justin).  So then I felt less guilty staying at one of these developments - a resort on Nazareth Bay which retains open spaces and both native and cultivated vegetation.  Maybe most importantly, the resort was teeming with anoles, upon which the boas feed.

The VI boa is nocturnal.  It spends its days tucked away in various places out of sight and its nights in the trees as it hunts for lizards.  During the day, I sought out the "nether regions" of the resort.  Every resort or village has these places.  They are places where "stuff" is tossed aside or stored, and they are designed to be out of sight and out of mind.  Random stacks of 2x4s, cinder blocks, wooden boards, and hoses in nooks behind landscaping make excellent habitat for many herps. And almost every night, I left the resort on foot and walked the dark, quiet streets lined on either side with dense shrubbery and trees.  Finding an accessible undeveloped lot proved to be tough.  I was limited to what I could see and reach from the streets, which seemed sufficient.  During the back half of the trip, I focused more on the seaside cliffs from which all manners of native vegetation grew.  What I was seeing looked very much like photos of habitat I'd seen in published studies.

VI boa.  Photo by Justin Elden

But it wasn't to be.  Perhaps it was because we were there during the driest time of year.  That may explain why I didn't see any ground snakes or Puerto Rican racers there either - two relatively common species that should not have been difficult to find.  Going snakeless, especially following a highly successful trip to Peru, left me feeling somewhat defeated.  But I did see some fascinating reptiles and amphibians.  And most importantly, we all had an unforgettable time.  (I'm still going to make you suffer through my snakeless sob story.)

The very first herp of the trip was this young green iguana (Iguana iguana).  We were at the resort for five minutes when I spotted it sleeping in the base of some palm fronds.  Because of how easy it was to find, I figured it would be the first of many.  However, it was the only iguana we'd see on the resort grounds (others showed up elsewhere).  These are non-native to the Virgin Islands but essentially naturalized.  Green iguanas are par for the course in many areas but this was Lumen's first interaction with a wild iguana so it was special.

My aforementioned friend had told me about a path through some forest toward an isolated beach few knew about.  This was on the northwestern portion of the island.  There is no parking, just a rough patch to pull over that accommodates two cars TOPS.  Ground snakes and racers are said to be here, so I looked while we hiked the path toward the beach.  Of course I found no snakes but anoles were plentiful, and on the beach I found my first of many big-scaled dwarf geckos (Sphaerodactylus macrolepis) under rocks.  They are tiny and fast and they look really fragile so I did not catch any to photograph throughout the trip.  Certainly fun to see though.

About the anoles, they were pretty much everywhere.  No surprise there.  The all-too-common and invasive brown anole (Anolis sagrei) is found here, as is the crested anole (Anolis cristatellus) and the banded anole (Anolis stratulus).  The adult male crested anoles are truly impressive creatures.  I stopped to look at just about every one of them.  I probably looked at them more than I normally would because I wasn't finding snakes, but I think anyone can appreciate these pretty much any time.

The banded anoles were attractive in their own right.

Anoles are very territorial, and usually competitive interspecifically.  I did not observe any indications that each species occupies a particular niche, however.  They are everywhere, although usually not near anoles of other species.

Another commonly seen lizard on St. Thomas is the Puerto Rican ameiva (Pholidoscelis exsul).  This is the largest lizard native to the island and is far more wary than the iguanas.  One ran across the road while I was taking a corner and I thought it was a mongoose at first because it was bigger than I expected an ameiva to be (and because we saw several mongooses elsewhere).  A few were seen (and chased by Lumen) at the resort, while the rest were scattered about St. Thomas and on St. John.

This ameiva was seen basking in a circular patch of sunlight

Lumen with an anole

Despite the dry conditions, frogs were a presence, albeit in limited quantity and not without some legwork.  The first frog I found was under a wooden board behind some shrubs in an area just like I described earlier.  The resort had a restaurant, and behind the restaurant was a shaded patio for employees to sit and take breaks.  One cannot access these boards without crawling through some shrubs and being directly next to these employees, which was awkward.  Imagine a forty three-year-old man poking around some trash at a resort.  That was me.  Anyway, it was totally worth it as I flipped a mute frog, or mute coqui (Eleutherodactylus lentus), an endangered species rapidly on the decline throughout its range.  This was my best find of the trip.

The common coqui (Eleutherodactylus coqui) was only occasionally heard and seen.  Some were found in water-filled bromeliads in a shaded woodland located in the center of the island.  A botanic garden we visited had ponds and glass aquariums scattered throughout the property for the frogs to breed in.  Lots of freshly-laid egg masses and tadpoles were seen.  We also saw quite a few red-footed tortoises here.

Cats are a scourge on the islands. Their numbers are unchecked and they wreak havoc on the native wildlife

Virgin Islands National Park, located on the island of St. John, was a place of interest due to its mostly undeveloped character. Driving on the island was more carefree than on St. Thomas, where traffic at times was quite heavy (driving on the left side of the road adds to the excitement). The park - and entire island - is littered in crumbling ruins of plantations built hundreds of years ago. One that we visited is the America Hill House, built in the early 18th century. Near the bottom of the hill, I flipped countless rocks in a dry wash and found a single Caribbean white-lipped frog (Leptodactylus albilabris). A couple of young tarantulas rounded out my notable finds here (boas are not known from St. John).

White-lipped frog

Genus Holothele?  No clue.

Freshwater was scarce here.  The only place I saw any on St. John was a set of two tiny depressions in a dried rocky creek.  In this pool were lots of tadpoles.  I spent a few minutes photographing tadpoles with my waterproof camera, and managed a few "meh" pictures.

Unknown frog

While I can swim reasonably well, I've never been much of a water guy.  And the older I get, the more evident this becomes.  During this trip, I realized that that's because my options in Chicago are limited.  Here in the Caribbean, swimming and snorkeling are very popular, because of the clarity and warmth of the water and the mesmerizing array of life that can be seen just beneath the surface.  All those years, working in an aquarium/reptile shop, listening to customers talk about their experiences snorkeling in the reefs, I never really got it.  Not until I tried it myself.  And now I might be hooked.

Just beyond the white sand lies a reef so fantastic that I cannot begin to describe it in all its glory.  Colorful fishes, corals, sponges, and all manners of benthic invertebrates greet you as you, as I like to say, "enter the food chain".  I was not satisfied with floating at the surface with the snorkel.  Without my glasses, it was really hard to see beyond a foot or two.  I wanted to get as close to the bottom as possible.  So I chucked the snorkel.  Reminder - I have no clue what I'm doing.

About eight feet below the surface, I could see a ledge - the edge of the reef.  Diving down, I grabbed the ledge and peeked below.  What I saw was nothing short of incredible.  A large school of yellow and silver fish, at least two different species of wrasse, damsels, blennies, and more.  I carefully followed a large stingray as it hovered across the bottom, looking for food.  I found it difficult to stay submerged as the dense saline water kept forcing me to the surface.  At one point I was grabbing a section of bare reef when I spotted a large bristleworm inches from my hand.  Grabbing that would have soured my day, for sure.

The underwater world is a dream come to life.

Rain spell

I cannot overstate how difficult it is to take pictures of fast-moving fish like this wrasse while eight to ten feet underwater

Another wrasse.  I really like the composition here

Bristleworm

Early in the evening before our departure, I returned to the pile of boards behind the restaurant to see if I could turn up another mute frog.  I tried to squeeze in between the shrubs as best as I can to avoid detection, but I was spotted by a pair of restaurant employees as I emerged on the other side.  In her thick Creole accent, the woman looked at me and said, "No, I done tink you can go here."  Her male coworker just looked at me and shook his head.  Damn, my plans were foiled.

My last hurrah trying to find a VI boa along the coast.  An abundance of sleeping anoles were found, and I enjoyed the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore late at night.  But no boas.

Until next time...

Peruvian Amazon Part 4 (FINAL): Shushúpe & the Episode of the Face Peelers

 After such an unforgettable time at Madre Selva, it was time to move on to Santa Cruz.  I couldn’t imagine that any place could top Madre Selva.  Collectively, the group had already found over sixty species of herps, but past trips to both research stations have netted over one hundred species.  Could we too hit that mark?

Another boat ride, this time back up the Amazon and a return to the rum distillery for lunch.  I noticed the family in the very intimate process of building their new boat and in my limited Spanish, asked about the process.  I was told that they used all local materials, including “la brea”, or tar, used to seal the seams.  I was floored to witness this.

The boy's lime slingshot

She heats up tar to be used in sealing the boat

Her husband poses with Mike

And the daughter processes fruit.  The scraps fall to the ground where they are eaten by pigs, dogs, and chickens

After lunch and our good-byes, we then motored toward a small village called Indiana.  A gang of mototaxis awaited us as we stumbled off the boat; they would take us across the isthmus between the Amazon River and the Rio Napo to the town of Mazan.  Our boat from Mazan to Santa Cruz was not large enough to take the entire group, so a few of us (Matt & Alan Ignoffo, Shawn LaRochelle, Matt Cage & I) stayed behind for the second round.  While we waited, we walked around Mazan a bit, and I thought it was a fascinating little town.

I'm actually not sure what Shawn had in mind here, but it worked for me

Before long, the boat returned to take us from the confluence of the Rio Napo and a smaller tributary that squiggles its way northwest (I do not know if it even has a name).  We took this tributary, passing a number of small settlements and homesteads along its banks until we reached the trailhead for Santa Cruz.  This trail was about one mile long through primary rainforest.  We caught up with the first wave of explorers who had already claimed their tambos.  I was lucky once again to have a tambo all to myself (!!!), and if you think for a moment that I had to settle for sloppy seconds, you are dead wrong.  You simply cannot go wrong at this beautiful place.

Santa Cruz by day

Santa Cruz by night

Steps from my tambo

My tambo. Pinch me

Since it was the middle of the day by the time we reached Santa Cruz, we took it easy and stayed around the station.  Matt Ignoffo grabbed his fancy microfishing setup and tried his hand at catching some of the small fish we could see in the site’s pond.  After quickly catching a small wolf fish, he was unsuccessful bringing anything else in.  I used his long-handled net and swept the banks as best as I could with nothing but a few tiny tetras to show for it.  We could see small cichlids swimming around and I wanted to catch one in order to identify it.  The sun was directly overhead and the heat was oppressive.

That’s when this young girl showed up - and showed us up.  She was a daughter of the facility’s caretaker.  Around twelve years of age, she began yanking cichlid after cichlid out of that pond using nothing but a stick, some string, and a hook with a bit of worm on the end.  She wore a big smile on her face knowing full well she was embarrassing this group of white idiots.  I like cichlids a lot, but I’m not an expert by any stretch.  These might have been Cichlasoma amazonarum, or the Amazon cichlid.

That night, as we prepared for our first night of herping at Santa Cruz, some members of the group began displaying some concern that no one had seen a bushmaster (Lachesis muta) yet, and lamenting the idea that it may not happen on the trip.  The bushmaster, known by locals as shushúpe, is a truly iconic snake of the Amazon.  It is a light brown snake clad in large, dark, triangular blotches and spends its nights in ambush, appearing very much like a lifeless pile of debris.  It is the largest pit viper in the world and the largest venomous snake in the Western Hemisphere, growing to over ten feet in length.  With its size come large fangs that deliver an extremely potent venom, though the species isn’t known to be very defensive toward humans.  Its bite is usually reserved for its prey, and I can only imagine how many times the sight of a bushmaster’s menacing eyes represented the final moments of life for some small mammal.

I have no shame in admitting that while the prospect of finding a bushmaster excited me, it wasn’t as “do-or-die” as it was for some of the others in the group.  I’m a pretty serious snake guy but the allure of the bushmaster hadn’t quite gotten me over the barrel.  I mean, I was finding Erythrolamprus.  And Helicops.  And other super cool snakes that suffer from expectedness.  Nevertheless, I felt the pulse that the others shared and it was contagious.  Plus, a part of me did not want to spend nearly two weeks in the jungles of Peru and NOT see the mythical shushúpe .

Shawn set a lofty goal of finding one coral snake per day (we had already found two on consecutive nights at Madre Selva) and made it clear that for each day without a coral snake, he would willingly accept a kick in the nuts.  So the pressure was on him to deliver.

A typical evening

As in Madre Selva, the herps came full force at Santa Cruz, beginning on night one. While crossing a shallow creek, I spotted an adult Surinam toad (Pipa pipa) in the water, and wouldn't you believe, I did not have my net. Alan tried to catch it by hand which is a futile effort no matter how you look at it, but I had to tip my hat to him. I would proceed to this same stretch of creek each night in hopes of finding the frog again.

A mating pair of stick insects

Leptodactylus, but not sure which species

Anolis fuscoauratus?

I saw a LOT of big millipedes, but only one like this, and I really liked it

A colossal terrestrial snail the size of a grapefruit

There's a very interesting story about how this absolutely stunning Langsdorff's coral snake (Micrurus langsdorffi) came into our temporary possession, but sometimes, what happens at Santa Cruz stays at Santa Cruz (also, Shawn was spared kicks to the groin this evening)

Red vine snake, or tropical flat snake (Siphlophis compressus). Definitely a bucket lister.

Wucherer's ground snake (Xenopholis scalaris)

Head details 

Collared ground snake (Atractus collaris), or as I like to call it, the Peruvian Storeria occipitomaculata

One of many Peruvian black scorpions (Tityus asthenes)

During the second night, Mike and I hiked for several hours.  We hiked some longer trails and a few shorter, "in-between" trails.  Among these was the shushupita trail, or "little shushúpe". Exhausted and without big finds, we trudged back to the main building, where most of the rest of the group were sitting at a table. No one asked how we did, which was strange. I noticed that the bottle opener for our drinks had broke and I inquired as to whether or not we had another opener and I was ignored. Mike and I stood there, mildly confused. What were we, invisible? Then I noticed that nearly everyone had a beer. And then Shawn flashed a glance and asked the rest, "Should we tell them?"

These jerks were giving Mike and I the silent treatment because Shawn had found a young bushmaster, ON THE SHUSHUPITA TRAIL, not long before Mike and I had walked it. It was all in good fun and we all shared some laughs. The next day, we photographed the bushmaster as well as a few other snakes we had found between several groups.

The bushmaster in situ, before being collected for photos (photo by Shawn LaRochelle)

“The great moment had arrived.  I was going to see a bushmaster!” - Raymond Ditmars, Thrills of a Naturalist’s Quest (1932)

A large adult Bothrops asper, arguably more dangerous that the bushmaster.

Aquatic coral snake (Micrurus surinamensis)...once again, Shawn's cohones remained intact

Absolute stunner rainbow boa (large adult)

White-naped earthsnake (Atractus snethlagaea)...maybe?

Collared tree runner (Plica plica)

The frog diversity within the immediate vicinity of the Santa Cruz station is remarkable.

Immature map treefrog (Boana geographica)

White-lined leaf frog (Phyllomedusa vaillantii)

Another juvenile map treefrog

This frigging thing.  Biggest smooth-sided toad (Rhaebo guttatus) I have ever seen and first in the wild.  Easily eight inches long and full of hot air (literally).  I grew tired of trying to get a good photograph since by this time of late afternoon the mosquitoes were getting bad

Late that evening, everyone met at the main building to kick back with a cold beverage or four and relax in all of our sweaty splendor.  I perked up when someone began talking about the “Peruvian face peelers”, because just the sound of that invoked gore.  It was time for spooky campfire stories.

Evidently, beginning in July of 2023, horrifying, mysterious creatures were creating havoc in the Loreto region, not far from where we were.  These creatures were described as being six feet tall or greater, with elongated heads and glowing yellow eyes.  They wore dark hoods and hovered above the ground up to several meters, attacking innocent villagers.  In one case, a fifteen-year-old girl was assaulted by a face-peeler and suffered a neck injury while escaping.  One community leader stated, “I encountered one up close.  His visage was scarcely discernible.  I witnessed his entire body suspended about a meter above the ground.”  Entire villages were terrified to go outside, especially at night.

Defending against these alien-like creatures proved ineffective.  “The aliens seem impervious to harm.  I fired at one twice, yet he emerged unscathed and vanished.  We are living in constant dread”, lamented the community leader.  Reports of immunity to bullets made headlines in Iquitos, where the military geared up to investigate.  It would take ten hours by river for the military to reach the village of Haikito, one of the locations of the purported face peelers.  After an initial investigation, the military had no answers for the small village.  The mystery deepened and the local people were left feeling helpless.

That night, I was lulled to sleep by the rainforest cacophony, hoping that thoughts of a grotesque flying monster wouldn’t mutate into a nightmare.

The following night, I joined Matt & Alan Ignoffo, Mike, and Simon on a jungle excursion.  After a few hours, Mike turned his attention to a creature in some vegetation near a large dead tree.  I approached to see what it was he was looking at around the same time he called us over.  When my eyes locked onto it, I was nearly frozen in place.  It was a large, dark creature that appeared as though it were made of flames.  From its large head sprouted dark hair longer than its body, and it gnashed its ugly jaws from which it exhaled a putrid stench.  Its long, skinny legs sported sharp claws which seemed designed to rip flesh from bone.  It stared right at me, but didn’t move.  In a fleeting bout of courage, I made the rash decision to make contact with this being.  With my body and soul trembling, I offered my hand.  

I touched the creature’s body. It was cold.  At first, it remained still, offering a glimpse of hope that a solemn connection could be made.  But in an instant, the creature lashed out.  It began flailing its arms and legs wildly, swinging its claws toward my face.  Then it let out a scream like I had never heard before.  By now, the entire group was beyond terrified.  Our screams echoed through the dark rainforest as we tried to get as far away from this creature as possible.  I started to run, and foolishly stopped to look behind me.  That’s when I watched this creature rise up and take flight.  It began to chase us, wide-eyed, and with outreached claws.  I saw my life flash before my eyes and came to grips that this was how I was going to die.  A grisly death at the hand of a Peruvian face peeler.

A shot of the face peeler as we ran for our lives

Miraculously, we all escaped with our lives.  When the dust settled, there was a large insect sitting where the face peeler had just been.  And then we realized that the face peeler was actually a huge Harlequin beetle (Acrocinus longimanus).  That was awkward.

But in all seriousness, not one but two harlequin beetles were found and they created quite a scene (including face attacks) that I will never forget.

Harlequin beetle (Photo by Simon Miller)

A third harlequin beetle found by a young boy a couple of days later

As for the mystery of the face peelers?  Well, I didn't make that up.  According to several news articles,  the "face peelers" were just goons hired by illegal gold miners to scare away the locals.  Supposedly, some even wore jetpacks to mimic spirits and the remote villagers, having never seen or heard of a jetpack, lost their minds.  This sounds ludicrous.  The real identities remain at large.

On the same night we were nearly taken out of commission by the harlequin beetles, we hiked down to a swamp even Mike hadn't been to before in eighteen previous trips.  The swamp was full of frogs, and I entered the water and slowly made my way across to the other side.

Clown treefrog (Dendropsophus sp.)

Orinoco lime treefrog (Sphaenorhynchus lacteus)

Another of many Boana

It wasn't my intention, but I woke this sleeping Amazon kingfisher

I believe it was the final night at Santa Cruz when I hiked to the Pipa pipa creek for the last time to attempt to find that frog.  Matt & Alan Ignoffo, Mike, and Mark joined.  The image of that frog immersed in the creek was hard to shake.  I desired a more appropriate photo than the one I had managed a few evenings prior, one of its rear end poking out from some dead leaves after it had escaped the beam of light from my headlamp.  So when we approached the creek, I spent more than a bit of time scanning the water.  I didn't see a Pipa, but I did spot a brown-banded watersnake (Helicops angulatus), its body intertwined in the submerged detritus and head periscoping out toward us.  I practically dove forward to catch it, causing the murky water to breach my boots for the first time on the trip.  Immediately and repeatedly, the snake began biting.  It was uncomfortable, bordering on painful.  But I had it, and we took a few voucher shots before releasing it back to its watery home.

Me with my hands full.  Photo by Mike Pingleton

Some of our final finds:

Another of the countless tarantulas

Monkey lizard (Polychrus, probably marmoratus).  Oops

Our third rainbow boa. I caught this one on our final night hike

This giant monkey treefrog (Phyllomedusa bicolor) was a true giant.

This may be Thecadactylus, but I'm not sure.  It was on my tambo and represented my final herp find of the trip.

Before I wrap this up, I’m happy to report that we DID find the electric eel.  A single fish, confined to an isolated stream bend.  It poked the posterior portion of its body out from a submerged burrow in the bank several times, giving us a great perspective of its lifestyle and ancient ways.  Spending time with this marvelous animal, deep in the jungle in the depths of the night, really underscored my love of the rainforest and strengthened my commitment to bring awareness to this fascinating place.  Humans must find ways of protecting these areas in a time of overpopulation, resource exploitation, and greed.  I like to think this is likely, but I have seen some of the worst of humanity.  

One way of getting involved is to support Project Amazonas (www.projectamazonas.org).  You can also book a trip through them @ MT Amazon Expeditions (www.mtamazon.com).  Alternatively, you may book a trip through Christoph Meyer @ “Wildlife Tours Peru” on Facebook.  Christoph is super professional and knowledgeable and goes out of his way to ensure that his clients have the time of their lives.  

Christoph as he appears 80% of the time

Mike and Alan even wrote a poem about him during our time in the jungle:

“There once was a man named Christoph

Who never once was pissed off

He went to college

To gain rainforest knowledge

Until a caiman took his bits off”

My time in the Peruvian Amazon was up, but I’ll return one day.  There is an anaconda with my name on it, lurking just below the surface.

P.S...I can't wrap this up without a few outtakes.

With the elusive David Myers

Unoriginal shot with a tailless whipscorpion on my face

Bushmaster meditation with Shawn LaRochelle (we did not find a coral snake on the last day but gave him a reprieve, he's a good guy)

A big frog

"Seafood suck"

This venom consists of hemotoxins, neurotoxins, and Pingletoxins