Insects

Whilst trekking through the forest to find the capuchins almost everywhere you look something is crawling, flying, buzzing or jumping. The unmissable cicada calls fill the air, their moults litter the base of trees whilst the newly emerged adults launch themselves into the air awkwardly with a rattle as you walk bye.

I'm not the biggest fan of insects but here in the Atlantic forest I can't help but stop to get a closer look. For the observant, every trip to the forest reveals something new. Metallic green flies, an assortment of spiders suspended at head hight waiting to entrap an unsuspecting monkey hunter, not forgetting the pink and black locust gathering on branches in a 'town meeting' style and hopping away franticly as you approach.

The millipede below was headed for the cover of the leaves as I loomed towards it with my lens. We frequently caught these in pitfall traps and can also be found with orange and red stripes.

Late one night I awoke to Fionne shaking Monique awake in the bunk above mine. Mo jumped out of bed and they both ran out the room, next thing I new Jonny was in the room and all three headed for the girls bathroom. This probably meant they had found something cool or dangerous so I peeled myself from my mattress only to find this beaut in the toilet. From this point on I scanned the roof for falling centipedes before entering the bathroom. I only saw one other and it was indeed in the roof but it I needn't panic, it was heading toward Joe's room.

The venom of a live centipede is extremely painful, but since this one had consequently drowned, Jonny couldn't resist and got some pictures with it. 

One day the monkey volunteers took it in turns to sit in a corridor of trees from dawn till dusk to see If the capuchins were using that particular tree line to get from one side of the forest to the other. We saw a total of 0 monkeys on this day, but it turned out to be a great day for insect spotting, As I sat and waited, I soon received far more attention than I had bargained for and at one point I counted over 15 butterflies all probing me for traces of salt with their proboscis .

Many species use mimicry to confuse their predators. Georgia and I came across this cryptic fellow one day on the forest, it was about the same size as my thumb and looked remarkably like a bird poo.

A Black witch moth -  These huge moths have many folk lore stories attached to them that could result in your death or you winning the lottery. I kept an open mind. 

Stick insects are a fairly common sight at Laguna Blanca, this was the largest I saw in 2 months.

Iridescent shells, glowing abdomens, horns and built-in buzzers - an amazing assortment of armoured explorers roam here. The shape and strength of this beetle makes me see them as a sort of mini juggernaut.

Longhorn beetles in South America can reach over 6 inches and are incredibly strong. This individual has been devoured and dismantled by hungry ants. The one below was crawling up the inside of the fly screen in our bedroom and still had a bit more fight in him.

This sorry sight is the result of an attack by a tarantula hawk wasp. On our way to the transitional forest, having previously paralysed it's victim, the wasp was flying off with the tarantula in it's grasp about 1 meter off the ground but it dropped it's prize onto the path.

My favourite sight however was during the night time capuchin sleep sight searches. At first I thought I was looking at dew, but as the ground glittered beneath my feet I soon realised it was in fact the reflection of the eyes of thousands of tiny spiders- beautiful!