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Colombia is “our” planet’s butterfly capital.
20% of the world’s known species have been seen there.
To put Colombia’s rich biodiversity into perspective, the 3,642 butterfly species found in Colombia can be compared to the 496 butterfly species found in Europe or the 4,000 butterfly species found in the entire African continent.
‘More than 200 species of the butterflies in the checklist are unique to Colombia.
Leave a CommentI have absolutely no idea what exactly are the pictured, profuse, substantial fruits.
Any Australians on their first visit to northern South America are almost guaranteed to be amazed by the plants, especially in humid, tropical locations.
I took the photo in a rainforest “pocket” near Villavicencio.
Leave a CommentJust about everything about the sunbittern is misleading, including its name.
It is not a bittern.
Being wary/ “shy” – & predatory – this elusive bird generally favours shaded rather than sunny places – usually, near riverbanks in warm, humid South & Central American forests.
Eurypyga helias is the only member of its genus & of its family.
It is neither a heron nor a rail, but looks as if it just might be closely-related; it is not.
When undisturbed & engaged in hunting, or tending to its young, a sunbittern has a “well-camouflaged” appearance.
Its interesting but subdued plumage does bear a vague resemblance to a bittern’s.
However, when alarmed/threatened – or when basking in sunlight – this species spreads its wings…& suddenly reveals some of the most spectacular plumage of any bird species!
Leave a CommentColombia is a global “hotspot” for spider species.
More than 580 of those identified there are believed to be endemic; they have only been seen in Colombia…knowingly, at least, by human eyes.
I do not know the pictured spider’s species, nor its particular specialty/niche.
My hunch is that it is semi-aquatic; I suspect that it actively hunts its prey, rather than “trapping” them in a web or pit.
I can confirm that its legs were very long; they spanned a considerable portion of the relevant rock, which was not merely a pebble
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With circa 150 living species, Brazil is – hands-down – the world’s most primate-diverse nation.
Colombia is also unusually primate-diverse.
You are looking at a small, arboreal, diurnal, monogamous monkey.
It eats fruits (& thereby distributes their seeds) & leaves (thereby, helping to “open up” the rainforest’s canopy, thus increasing the amount of light that reaches the forest floor) and insects. (it probably eats arachnids too)
Plecturocebus discolor has a number of “common” names; it is most commonly known as the white-tailed titi.
It is one of 41 New World monkey species that currently survive in Colombia.
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A portion – a very small portion – of Colombia is desert.
More generally, as measured by annual rainfall statistics, Colombia is the world’s wettest nation.
From #6 on – & for the next several posts in this series – all locations are within “cattle country” near the city of Villavicencio.
Here, one is only circa 100 kilometres from Bogotá, but in an utterly different “world”.
Having headed southeast of the national capital – & crossed the easternmost of the Andes’ three Colombian cordilleras – one reaches a locale which is very much lower, hotter & wetter.
Average annual rainfall in Villavicencio: 4,450 mm.
Darwin is (by far) Australia’s wettest capital city; its annual average is 1,723 mm.
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This petite owl is mostly-terrestrial; it can fly, but rarely does so.
It is diurnal, not nocturnal.
Its “home sweet home” is not high up in a tree, cave, cliff-face or barn.
Burrowing owls dwell underground.
Their common name, however, is misleading; so-called “burrowing” owls prefer to take advantage of actually-burrowing animals.
They move into those other animals’ “abandoned” burrows.
I suspect that some owner-excavators’ “abandonment” of their homes would have been lethally “assisted” by members of the pictured species, Athene cunicularia.
Leave a CommentIt was rather obvious that the capybaras pictured in #7 of this series were all looking in the same direction, intently.
Probably, their eyes were keenly focused on this post’s hero, who was basking on the wetland’s opposite bank.
S/he is a spectacled caiman – one of six living caiman species. (or three species – caimans’ classification is a contested/confusing field)
Caimans are South & Central America’s crocodilians.
Leave a CommentYou are looking at very large, highly sociable rodents.
There are just two capybara species; pictured is the more widespread, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, the greater capybara.
It is – handsomely – the world’s largest living rodent.
A “typical” adult weighs between 35 & 66 kilograms; females are bigger than males.
The heaviest-recorded wild capybara weighed 91 kilograms!
An adult’s body length usually exceeds 1 metre.
These very adaptable herbivores inhabit every South American nation, bar Chile.
They thrive in both grassland & forest, & quite happily share habitat with humans & their livestock.
Capybaras mate and give birth only in water, so convenient access to a river, lake or wetland is a “must”.
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The pictured location’s altitude is very much lower (circa 450 metres ASL, rather than 3,500 metres) than was #5’s in this single-image series.
The climate here is very much hotter & the terrain is flat.
If it had been left in its natural state you would be looking at a photo of dense tropical rainforest, unfenced, with absolutely no cattle.
Assuredly, we are not the first visitors to be amazed that this “much-degraded” countryside is still inhabited by the largest of “our” globe’s four “anteater” species.
Myrmecophaga tridactyla – the giant anteater – can coexist with beef cattle…and it is not much-troubled by fences – non-electrified ones, at least.
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