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.

Laterite

A laterite rock freshly washed from a rain.

Fungi

Acrocomia aculeata

Mucajá palm fruit.

Fern

A gigantic fern right from the crotch of a tree.

Muruci (Byrsonima sp.)
Sitío Conceição

Tajá

Caladiums at Sitio Eimar Franco.

Ceiba pentanda

Roger Williams University students measuring the diameter of a Ceiba tree.

Fungus

Buriti palm

Buriti (Maurita flexuosa)
Sitío Conceição

Costus

Costus sp./ Sitío de Conceição

Tajá

Caladium.

Butterfly 238

Calycophyllum spruceanum

Pau mulato, discarding older bark.

Frog eggs

Anyone for frog caviar?

Grasshoppers

A "whole bunch" of young grasshoppers. Click on image for an enlargement.

Genipapo fruit

G. americano
Sitío de Zilma, Mararu

Guaraná fruit

I planted this guaraná tree (Paullina cupana) from seed. Now it's producing fruit of its own. It's a beauty!

Morpho

Morpho butterfly.

Livingstonea chinesa

Another long-horned beetle

Tree hopper

A tree hopper on a young cupuaçu tree. Maybe looking for a place to raise a family. Click on image for enlargement.

Katydid

A katydid, thin as a razor blade.

Unidentified beetle

Probably a long-horned beetle.

Butterfly 255

Butterfly 257

Pingo de ouro

Pingo de Ouro (Cassia sp.)

Unknown

I haven't figured out what's going on here. When I first started taking pictures, I assumed that it was a spider on its web. But the more I looked at the scene, the more it seemed that whatever was in the web was prey, not predator. Almost in a crucified position... and it wasn't moving. But there was something very small moving about the lower abdomen of the prey. Maybe moving in and out of the prey is a better description. Whatever it was, it was too small to photograph. Any ideas? Click on the image for enlargement. I have the original images of higher resolution, if anyone wants copies.

Fungus