The field session of the Tropical Amblypygid Project has concluded with great success. If you'd like more information about this project or other ones I head, please visit http://www.kennychapin.com or email me at chapinkj@gmail.com. If you're interest in using any of the photography showcased on this blog, please contact me for permission.

Many thanks to those of you who took time to check out this project and the photos we captured along the way.

Best,

Kenny

Opiliones (Harvestmen)

Bufo margaritifer

Millipede

An aggregation of caterpillars.

I woke up a bird along the trial the other night.

A tiny mushroom (click to enlarge).

Taylor snapped a shot of one of the Squirrel Monkeys that travels through camp.

(click to enlarge)

Onycophora.... Onycophora ("Velvet Worm", though it's not a worm)

Cane Toad (Rhinella marina)

A delicate Scutigeromorpha Centipede.

I stumbled across this snake (probably Oxyrhopus petola) last night while searching a tree for Amblypygids (more to come).

                                  Taylor spotted this incredible caterpillar.

We caught this little beetle munching away on a mushroom.

                                I first traveled to Ecuador as an assistant to Canopy Herpetologist Shawn McCracken. We met up with him and helped him climb this emergent tree. In this photo I’m about 35 m up in the crown.

Check out www.TADPOLEorg.org for info on Shawn’s non-profit organization.

This big gecko has become a regular resident of our lab.

Taylor took this awesome photo (click to enlarge).

                         Taylor found this Haliconia in bloom.

  Close-up of a Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) Taylor found.

Looking up the Rio Tiputini.

                            This scorpion (Scorpiones: Buthidae: Tityus?) protects her young by letting them hitch a ride on her back. We found her resting on a tree trunk while munching on a cockroach (Blattodea).

Here’s another Orthoperan.

A cryptic katydid (Orthoptera) bows for the camera. The diversity of Orthoptera is incredible here – each night we see several new species.

And another

                             We collected this big scorpion (we think it’s Scorpiones: Buthidae: Tityus sp.?) a couple nights ago.

Here’s another Spectacled Caiman.

This Pink Toe Tarantula (Arachnida: Araneae: Theraphosidae: Avicularia sp.) put up a good fight against our bag. Note its fangs projecting through the plastic (click to enlarge).

We floated down the Rio Tiputini to spot animals on the bank. This young Spectacled Caiman (Caiman crocodilus) was swimming by.

A gravid amblypygi. Her eggs sit under her opisthosoma. We captured her and what we think is her mate.

                              We found this amblypygid in mid-molt. The animal hung upside down and crawled out of his old exoskeleton. Ecdysis is a sensitive time for most arthropods because their procuticle isn’t sclerotized (think soft shell crab).

This cicada has fallen victim to parasitic fungus! Not the best photo, but the subject has probably never been recorded.

Here’s that big male again. His tag code is:

Mark Location	Color
One	White
Two	Blank
Three	Blank
Four	Red

Abbreviated as 1W4R

We tagged (Code: 1W4R) this big male for the site fidelity component of the project. Hopefully we’ll see him again.

A cryptic lizard eying us (Anolis sp?). A bit of his red dewlap shows through in this photo (click to enlarge).

Taylor took this picture of this small, red, slimy-looking mushroom (Basidiomycota).

Here’s our smallest tagged amblypygid (Amblypygi: Phrynidae: Heterophrynus sp.) yet. Note the red paint identification mark on the right side of its prosoma (click to enlarge).

 Taylor found this flatworm (Platyhelminthes) crossing the trail.

Cup fungi (Ascomycota: Pezizaceae) spotted along the trail on our first day. They’re no more than 5 cm tall (click to enlarge).

Presented are photographs from the field session of the Tropical Amblypygi Project.

The project, headed by Kenneth J. Chapin with assistance from Taylor G. Donaldson, investigates the social organization and natural history of tropical Whip Spiders (Order Amblypygi) via molecular analysis while documenting the species of Arachnida and Myriapoda found in what is perhaps the most biodiverse, ecologically important, and anthropogenically threatened locations on earth: Yasuní, Ecuador.

The field session is being conducted in July and August 2010 at Tiputini Biodiversity Station, and images are posted as they are captured.

Best,

Kenny

www.KennyChapin.com