Monkey Monday!

The last of the monkey species we'd see in Panama.

Geoffroys Tamarin.

We spotted them a short walk from where our ride got stuck.

The fellow in the pink shirt was the driver that got us stuck. Our guide was able, after the original driver could not, to free the truck. It would have been a long walk back to camp.

Of the three species we saw, these are the only one that does not have a prehensile tail.

And unlike the others we saw these only this one time. But like the others they were curious about us.

Monkey Monday!

The sounds of this creature were ubiquitous during our visit.

The Mantled Howler Monkey.

Given the dense foliage of the rainforest, they were more often heard than seen. But this group was right off the road on Boxing Day last year.

It was especially cool to see the youngsters, who seemed to be just as curious about us.

The howling is a low roar. At times I thought it was an aircraft flying over only to realize I wasn't in New Jersey, duh! I tried, with rather limited success, to record the howling. But in the end my phone was just not up to the task. It didn't help that people would the talking and moving about whenever I tried.

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I've written before about watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom as a kid. And dreaming that I could see all the wonderous creatures highlighted in that program (but even as a kid I could do without the hokey insurance references). It is so cool and I am so fortunate to be able to live that dream.

Monkey Monday!

We spotted this fellow spotting us at breakfast time at our lodge in Panama. On Christmas morning.

A White-headed Capuchin monkey. One of a small group on the grounds of the lodge. And one of three monkey species we saw on our trip.

It seemed as fascinated with us as we were with it.

Or maybe it just was surprised we were there between it and the fruit on the bird feeders.

This was our first morning there, and it was no doubt thinking, "where did all these people come from!"

A nice Christmas present from mother nature (to us, not it!).

Bye-bye!

Atomic Flies

There is something strange going on down in Panama ...

Take a good look at the sign in the picture. Click to bigafy if you need to. What is the USDA up to? And what good can come from making Atomic Flies?

Would you turn into 'Flyman' if you got bitten by one? And would Flyman and Spiderman be enemies?

We saw this sign pretty much everyday we were down there. But only in the Darien Provence. It was crazy how open they were about this. I mean, would you want the world to know you were breeding atomic flies? I think not!

But we didn't see any giant flies with glowing red eyes. Thank god. I mean, the little non-atomic flies are bad enough.

On the other hand, we saw several species of giant spiders, like this one, big as your hand:

Sericopelma rubronitens, the Panama Red Rump Tarantula (black rump morph apparently).

I guess something must be eating those giant flies.

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The red-eyed fly is the New World Screwworm. A particularly nasty little bugger. It has been mostly eradicated in the United States since 1966. Mexico and the Central American countries of  Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua have been fly free since 1991. And the firewall is in Panama.

Today the USDA and partners maintain a permanent sterile fly barrier at the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia to prevent the return of this pest.

And how do they create this sterile fly barrier? By irradiating the male flies, that's how.

Thus the atomic fly logo.