A rainstorm brewing over the Rio Manu:
A woody mushroom catches the eye and the last of the sun's rays:
A camouflaged Horned frog (Ceratophrys sp.) goes unnoticed on the forest floor, its camouflage essential to its predatory ambush style. It possesses small, weak legs, and moves infrequently, preferring to let the prey do the walking:
A bee (Melipona sp.) collects tree sap, perhaps as building materials for its nest:
The odd couple, a cockroach and fulgorid hopper practicing trophobiosis: the sugary exudate from the fulgorid is consumed by the cockroach, though it's unclear what, if any benefit the hopper receives:
A buttress root in the rainforest understory is a slow growing canvas for lichens and mosses; the textures changing with the light:
A genetic mutation resulting in a semi-achlorophyllous leaf. The understory is a patchwork of discoloured, twisted and chewed leaves, rarely does one avoid the attention of some herbivore. However, the clean division along the mid-rib of this leaf was an interesting wrinkle:
Second only to the Jaguar in the rainforest understory, this young Puma (Puma concolor) has a arrived at a peccary wallow, which attracts not only peccaries but pacas, agoutis, opossums and a variety of other small vertebrates; all potential prey:
Thanks for looking and commenting,
Paul
