Funny and Freaky Animals in the Amazon by Ella

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Funny and Freaky Animals in the Amazon

By Ella Stainwright

This year we have been to so many places, but none like the Amazon.  It was full of flora and fauna.  We saw so many cool and funny animals, along with species of plants I have never even heard of.  There were freaky things too, such as...

I'll tell you about it.

Frogs in the Bedroom

While we were staying in the Amazon there were a lot of frogs in the bedroom - it was one of the first things we learnt.  I had to check the bathroom before Kaelie went in.  I checked behind the door, in the shower, in the sink and in the toilet.  Once, I looked in the toilet and found a frog, so I asked Daddy to get rid of it.  He splashed it and when I looked in to see how it was going, it jumped out and I screamed.  There was another time where there was a frog on the wall and it moved so weirdly it freaked me out.  It walked with its legs twisted and dangling down.  Its legs were very long, for a frog, and looked even longer when it jumped.

Monkeys and Coatis

There were a lot of monkeys in the Amazon.  They were everywhere.  There were many different species and we saw eight out of the nine species in Cuyabeno.  They were very cute and cheeky, as I learnt when they were throwing nuts at us.  They were excellent at jumping and could jump more than a metre.  I only saw one fall in the water and it fell with a big splash.  The monkeys were very good at squabbling.  As we watched they would slap, push and tease each other. 

We also saw some coatis running along a branch across the river.  It was Kaelie who identified them as coatis because she recognised their noses from Iguazu.  The rest of us thought they were monkeys.

Stinky Turkeys (Hoazin Birds)

The Stinky Turkeys were really cool.  We saw loads of them, almost as many as the monkeys.  They were a bit stinky but we couldn't really smell it.  They only smell because of the food they eat, so the poo stinks as well.  We saw one fly across the water, poop half way, try to land on a branch, fail and fall, splash, into the water.

Cool but Freaky Insects

There were many insects in the Amazon.  Some in the bedroom, lots in the jungle.  We once saw a mouse spider in the bathroom, that made Kaelie cry and refuse to use the bathroom.  We also saw a huge tarantula in the jungle, but I could only see it's hairy butt.  Other spiders we discovered were the crab and scorpion spiders.

Besides spiders we also saw other insects such as locusts, beetles and leaf cutter ants.

When we went for a night walk we saw lots of locusts.  Some looked like leaves, some sticks but all were ‘freaky-cool’.  We saw one locust shed its shell, which was really cool and amazing because most people don't get to see that.  We also saw a golden beetle that looked like a golden dot of paint on a leaf.

There were leaf cutter ants all around the lodge walking on paths they had made themselves.  They were almost always carrying leaves of a special type.  We followed their trail that started at the forest and went to four or five ant holes.  We also saw them in the jungle and we had to be careful not to step on them.

Caimans

We saw three different types of caimans in the Amazon.  Caimans are a reptile, a type of alligator.  They were really freaky for so many reasons.  One reason was their eyes.  Sometimes all you could see were two red dots, shining in the darkness.  Another reason for their "freakyness" was their camouflage.  It was more than once we mistook a log for a caiman.  Once we saw a "caiman" that was really a log, but it didn't help our uneasiness.  We also saw a "log" that was rather lumpy, but as it turned out the lumps were the caiman’s eyes.  Spooky.

Snakes

We saw three snakes in the Amazon.  One was a Black Anaconda.  I found it hard to tell the difference between the head and body until the head moved when we were up close.  We also saw an Amazonian Boa that was breaking into a bird's nest.  The nest was shaped like a handbag and the boa slid into it easily.  The last snake was a green parrot snake in the roof of the hammock room.  It was small and chasing a frog.  All the snakes were very cool.

Birds

We saw so many birds in the Amazon, too many to count, so I'll tell you my favourites.

There were the yellow and blue parakeets.  They were beautiful, but they didn't hang around for long.  There was also the Great Ani.  It was a big, black bird that we saw a lot of and it seemed powerful to me.  We saw two sets of woodpeckers.  We watched them peck wood and fly from tree to tree.  Then there was my favourite - the owl.  We only saw one, on a night canoe and it turned its head almost all the way around to look at us.  It was amazing.

Sloth

We were lucky to see a sloth during our time in the Amazon.  It was moving!  It looked grey, but was really brown and hairy.  It was moving to get food, but that was dangerous because he was likely to get seen by his predator, the vulture.  The sloth was unbelievably cool.

Pink Dolphins and Giant Fish

On two of our canoe excursions, we spotted pink dolphins.  We expected them to be bright pink and showing off, but we were wrong.  They were very shy and were pinky-grey.  Pink dolphins turn pink when they are more active, like humans do when they exercise.  They also get pink as they get older.  They didn't jump out of the water, more came up for air and they were hard to find once they had gone down.  There was also a giant fish around where the dolphins were and we once thought it was a dolphin.  They are very protective of their homes and babies, and they can send a boat spinning with one flick of their tail.

We spent five days in the Amazon, but it should have been ten.  The things that we saw and did were amazing, but another five days in the jungle would have been too good to be true.  We had so many funny moments, saw so many cool things, learnt so much and had the time of our lives.