Açaí

Açaí seeds (Euterpe oleracea)

Thanks to both Joan at http://saphotographs.blogspot.com/ and Ted at http://beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com/ for their comments. I'm only a learner.

Heliconia

Heliconia (Rostrata) flowers

Joan, thanks for the tips on butterflies vs. moths.

Fungus 82

Butterfly or moth?

Fern

Social spiders

It's been awhile since I've seen such a spectacular network of webs produced by social spiders. Reminds me of cloud forests as seen early in the morning.

Cupuaçu

Newly forming fruit on a cupuaçu tree (Theobroma grandiflorum).

Mussandra flower

Piquiatuba, Pará

Roger Williams University students at Piquiatuba on the outskirts of Santarém. Now a military base, it is said to have been one of the sites where Henry Wickham lived before making off with the rubber tree seeds in the 1870s. The university group was led by Professor Jeremy Campbell (anthropology) and Nathan Darity (Amizade). Dr. Patricia Chaves from UFOPA joined us on a visit to Bosque Santa Lúcia that day. Photo: Micah Gregory.

Rubber trees

Rubber tree pods. (Hevea brasiliensis)

Woman mango

My neighbor at Bosque Santa Lúcia, Dona Cecilia, invited us over for lunch today and the dessert was mango. She took great delight in telling me that this one is called "manga mulher", which translates into mango of the woman, or woman's mango. The cleft in fruit leaves no doubt as to the origin of the name. I ate two of them!

Butterfly

Calico butterfly.

Butterfly on florescence of tachi cauaçu

Butterfly feeding on the florescence of tachi cauaçu (Triplaris sp.)

Muiratinga fruit

Fruit from the muiratinga tree (Maquira sp.). Moraceae family. Referred to in an earlier post as the "penis tree".

Tortoise bugs

I counted approximately 50 tortoise bugs at this specific location, meaning the same branch of a small tree.

Tanager nest

I found this nest in a Bactris maraja palm. It was built by a tanager, probably a silver-beaked tanager and she was very resourceful in using a variety of materials. Note the electrical wire amongst leaves, vines and other objects.

Assassin bug

I caught this Assassin bug having lunch on an ant. Nice guy, I thought to myself. Then I reminded myself that we human beings assassinate nearly every animal under the sun for our own lunches.

Macaxeira

My neighbor, Luiz, with a fine sample of macaxeira roots (Manihot utilssima).

Treehopper

I photographed this treehopper on a cupuaçu tree some days ago, when all the leaves were intact. A few days later there was not much left of one of the leaves. I can only assume that the hopper is gorging herself in preparation to deposit eggs. I hope to see this next stage.

Fungi

Army ants

Caterpillars

These caterpillars climbed down from a tree on a vine that had been cut at about 2 meters from the ground. They seemed to be programmed for going down because they seemed disoriented and made no move to go back up the vine.