This uncommon reptile swims in the tributaries of the Amazon, searching for its preferred food of aquatic snails. It also climbs trees and shrubs and rests on overhanging vegetation during the high water season (pictured). Seasonally flooded forest, Pacaya-Samiria Reserve, Peru ("Dracaena" sp.).
Seasonally flooded forest, Peru.
When I explore the rain forest, I become a little kid in a candy store. The astonishing biodiversity found in rain forest is to me "mind candy". This tiny object (photographed with a dissecting microscope) was my mind candy one day. What could it be? Answering that question is one of my favourite pastimes. Eventually I figured it out. It's a fecal shield! Made by a tiny beetle larva to protect itself, the beetle uses its own feces to construct this object it then carries around on its back. Eventually it pupates inside the basket-like base. Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, Ecuador (family Chrysomelidae: genus "Spathiella").
