LIFE IN THE JUNGLE
Come to think of it, we were never sure how many things our guide did not want us to know. This happy state of ignorance only increased Myrtle’s uneasiness at times, mostly those times she worried about snakes.
However, as Myrtle kindly reminded me at every opportunity, the incredible richness of the flora and fauna in the Amazon jungles and basin area virtually insures the presence of any number of amazingly fearful things.
At this point she usually gave me a tidy lecture on what we could be facing on any given day during our walks through the jungle.
One of these delights was the Bullet Ant, which she gleefully informed me inflicts the most painful insect bite ever known to humans, a bite that has been compared to getting shot by a bullet, which is where the ant got its name, as a matter of fact.
OK, then! Just what I was looking for on this trip – getting shot, and by a Bullet Ant, no less!
Our guide did locate a Bullet Ant nest at the base of a huge Ceiba tree one day. He told us the ant’s bite is so painful that when natives must camp in the jungle overnight, they try to find a Bullet Ant nest to camp next to because animals will smell the ants and stay away from the nest.
Our guide unfortunately did not tell us just why we should expect the ants to ignore the humans.
He informed us that the Bullet Ant is one of the largest ants in the world, averaging over an inch in length, that its sting has been said to be 30 times more painful than the sting of a honeybee, that the pain will last for 24 hours, that when threatened, the Bullet Ant will sting repeatedly, thereby releasing into its victim an ever-increasing dose of its venom, which contains a paralyzing neurotoxin called ‘poneratoxin’.
It seems the Bullet Ant has a charming cousin, the Brazilian Wandering Ant, which is the most poisonous ant in the world, and its Greek name means “the murderer.” Their bite can cause death in children, and there is even an anti-venom developed for this ant.
But fortunately, said our guide, this ant lives in Brazil.
At this point my dear Myrtle felt obliged to tell me, sotto voce of course, that the Brazilian Wandering Ant has been found in most South American countries where the climate is right for them, namely the very jungle where we were walking at that moment.
Well, thanks a lot, dear Myrtle! You know, I had really been looking forward to communing with nature on this jungle walk. Notice the past tense. But I got back at her. I spotted this wonderful vine before she did and pulled her back suddenly with a whispered, “Snake!” True to form she gave a pretty little scream, which gave everybody an occasion to chuckle later, except her, of course.
But really, how am I to commune with nature when I need to be watching for four poisonous snakes, the Bullet Ant, the Brazilian Wandering Ant, the Poison Dart Frog, the 17-foot Green Anaconda, and heaven forbid if you step foot into the water, the Red-Bellied
Piranha!
It seems these are the most feared creatures in the jungle, and I detected a distinct note of relish in Myrtle’s voice as she gave me the low-down on each of them.
The Green Anaconda is the largest non-venomous snake in the world, typically 17-20 feet in length and weighing 550 pounds when fully grown. They spend most of their time lying submerged in a river or marsh, with only their nostrils and eyes above water.
Their usual prey is deer, crocodile, turtles, or fish, and they kill their prey by squeezing it until it stops breathing, then swallowing it whole. While they rarely attack humans, their size and incredible strength make them dangerous, said Myrtle. You think?!
I was mentally stuck on visualizing the crack and crumble of a poor turtle’s shell as that Anaconda started squeezing. Not pretty.
Our guide had informed us that while Red-Bellied Piranhas are greatly feared, their favorite foods are other fish, insects, shellfish, algae, and seeds, and they feed on humans only when other food is not available. Plus, he said, they feed in swarms only when they are starving.
Myrtle quickly informed me, sotto voce of course, they can strip the flesh off you literally in minutes because they have those powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth. And that is why everybody is afraid of them.
But she saved the best for last – the Poison Dart Frog, which some people say is the deadliest creature in the Amazon rainforest.
These tiny frogs live near sources of water and are found in many different colors including red, blue, green, and gold, all bright-hued as a defense mechanism, warning predators of their danger.
The morning we were going to trek through the jungle to visit a village of Yagua natives, our guide had told us how this tribe of Yaguas used poison darts to hunt food, and they got their poison from poison dart frogs.
The natives take the stiff rib from the center of a palm tree, he said, sharpen one end, air-seal the other end of the dart with cotton from the kapok tree, then very carefully rub each dart point on the skin of a poison dart frog and place the poisoned dart in a bamboo quiver for safety.
The frog’s poison is a powerful neurotoxin that shuts down the nerves and muscles of victims after it is absorbed through the skin, thus killing them. Careless archers have been known to die if they accidentally touch the skin of the frog or the tip of the dart.
So, of course, while we were walking to the Yagua village my ever-so-helpful Myrtle continued my education about poison dart frogs.
The most poisonous of all the poison dart frogs is the Golden Poison Dart Frog endemic to Colombia, she told me.
Its scientific name Phyllobates terribilis does conjure up visions of a T-Rex or Velociraptor, doesn’t it? This terrifying frog is a little over two inches long.
Even so, it is the largest known poison dart frog and is currently believed to be the most toxic animal on earth. Yikes!
New research is being conducted on this frog’s food sources, in particular one small beetle. That beetle may eventually be found to be the most toxic animal on earth.
It seems poison dart frogs all accumulate their poison from the ants, centipedes, beetles, and mites they eat, that the poison builds up over time and is stored in the frog’s skin.
The alkaloid batrachotoxin that builds up in the skin of the Golden Poison Dart Frog is so powerful that there are stories of dogs and chickens that have died after contact with a paper towel on which the frog had walked. Myrtle gave a little bloodthirsty giggle at this, which I did not appreciate.
The strength of a frog’s poison depends on its food sources, but the average dose a Golden Poison Dart Frog carries is about one milligram of poison, enough to kill about 10,000 mice, between 10 and 20 humans, or two African bull elephants. Yikes! Yikes! And Yikes again!
It is not a pleasant way to die, dear reader. When the poison is absorbed through the pores of the skin, it shuts down the nerves, causing severe pain that is like electrical shocks on your fingers and toes. Within about a minute you will go into seizures, and in about five minutes you will be dead. At that point you would probably be grateful to be dead just to be rid of the pain, said my intrepid Myrtle. There is no known anti-venom.
So, with great care the natives capture a poison dart frog, hold it down with a piece of bamboo, then carefully swipe the prepared darts across the frog’s skin before releasing the frog. The swiped darts retain their poison for up to two years.
Now this little P. terribilis is, perversely, rather too intelligent for a frog, and is highly social to boot, flaunting its aristocratic dominance with undisguised snobbery. It knows that its killing power is far superior to that of all other life forms on earth, at least as far as we know, and it is altogether shameless in demonstrating its carefree supremacy.
These frogs are known to be unusually bold and curious. They are social animals, living in groups of five to seven, communicating with calls and gestures. They are immune to their own poison and get along well with each other, at least until mating season.
And, as Myrtle happily informed me, because their preferred habitat is a wet and humid rainforest, there is no logical reason they should not have migrated from Colombia right down into the Amazon jungle where we were currently walking.
This information failed to add to my ability to commune with nature. I am sure I could have survived quite well without all those facts, but I didn’t know how to pull them back out of my head, so my senses all went on High Alert status for the duration of our walks, which was quite a tiring state, to tell you the truth, and I usually failed about halfway through the walk.
But Myrtle’s extreme fear of snakes carried her through successfully. I personally thought she was like a wire ready to snap, but she did not appreciate my noticing that, surprise, surprise.
Our guide introduced us to many plants, insects, birds, and animals that are unique to the Amazon or found there, and Myrtle yelped only once, when our guide uncovered a saucer-plate-sized tarantula on our night walk.
She covered her faux pas nicely by telling the group she had a slight reaction to the Jumping Meat and manioc we had had for dinner that night with our cabbage and rice. She said that the manioc made her a bit of a maniac and the Jumping Meat made her jump around a bit. We all laughed.
I thought that was quite clever! Our guide just sort of looked at her.
Our cook had tried to filet and cook up the Piranhas we had caught during the afternoon, but there was so little meat on them that we each had only a tiny bite, so I can’t really tell you that I made a meal of Piranhas. However, I can tell you that that little Red-Bellied demon did NOT make a meal of ME!
The day we visited the Yagua Village, our guide explained the different ways the Yaguas use plants and animals, including their use of the poison dart frogs and their carving of gourds into ceremonial masks.
Then he picked a fruit from a tree we were passing, broke it open, and proceeded to paint red stripes on our faces with the juice of the brilliant red flesh inside the fruit. He said the Yaguas use this fruit for war paint.
Hmmm. I did wonder, dear reader, if it were advisable that we gringos enter the village with war paint on our faces, in light of the fact that our guide had told us this tribe uses poison darts as weapons.
But they turned out to be a friendly tribe and knew our guide. After a pow-wow with him, they proceeded to demonstrate the blowguns that they use to shoot the poison darts.
Those blowguns were something ELSE! Over six feet long they were, which might not seem astonishing until you take into account that the Yaguas are about four feet tall.
But three of those tiny little Yaguas took up the blowguns effortlessly, put them up to their mouths, puffed out their cheeks, and suddenly those poisoned darts spat out in low arcs and slammed into a tree about 100 feet from us, where they remained imbedded in the bark. Wow!
We were all invited to try our luck, and I saw our guide reminding the tribal leader to be sure our darts were not poisonous.
Our mate Ginger wanted to be the first to try her luck, so the tribal leader loaded a gun and gave it to her.
She promptly lurched forward from the unexpected weight of the gun, then righted herself, managed to put it up to her mouth, took in a huge breath, puffed out her cheeks, and gave a mighty blow.
The dart left the blowgun with a soft hiss and fell directly down from the gun, where it neatly impaled a canistelo rind it found conveniently at hand.
Well, we all had to giggle a bit, even Ginger, who was clearly embarrassed.
Myrtle asked to be second. Just for the record, I did remind her that the gun was longer than she was, but she paid me no mind.
The leader loaded the gun, passed it to her and mimed breathing out of his belly.
Now Myrtle looked a little strange with the blowgun, to tell you the truth, because it looked like it would tip her over any minute. But she managed to heft it up and put it toward her mouth. Then she jerked it into an almost vertical position.
You know dear reader, at that moment she looked for all the world like one of the seven priests holding up their trumpets of ram’s horns in front of the ark, marching around the city of Jericho.
I half expected some walls to come tumbling down.
But as I looked around, there were only thatch-roofed huts available, and they would make quite unsuitable tumbling walls.
Nevertheless, I inched away from the nearest wall as Myrtle puffed out her belly and her cheeks and let go one mighty whooshing breath.
She did get that dart to leave the gun!
Unfortunately, because in her enthusiasm she sort of twisted around as she raised the gun on high, the dart fell down on our guide’s shoe, where it stuck straight up like a proud feather.
Our guide gave a little yelp, but recovered his composure quickly and snatched that dart out of his boot. Happily, his boot was heavy enough and thick enough that the dart stuck in the leather but did not penetrate his flesh, a great blessing, since I for one did not really trust the man who was separating the poisonous darts from the non-poisonous. He was weaving a bit from side to side as he sorted them, and every once in a while, he gave a silly little grin.
But the significant thing about this episode is that it provided a wonderful economic opportunity for our guide. We all immediately wanted a pair of those boots, because we figured if that blowgun dart could not get through that boot, neither could a snake’s fangs. At least that was the plan.
Our guide later ordered boots for all of us, and he made a tidy little profit as the middle man. And we all got a great price because he got a break from his source – a perfect demonstration of capitalism in action, don’t you agree?
But I think the guide got a little nervous about the whole blowgun thing. He told us he thought a storm was coming and we needed to return to our camp. So, three of us got gypped out of our turns on the blowguns
On the way back I spied a fantastic huge ropy vine hanging down very near the path we were taking. It was irresistible. I grabbed that wonderful vine and stepped back to give myself a running start for a great Tarzan experience.
I did get airborne, but unfortunately the vine broke and in a flash, I was sitting on my unhappy tush. I didn’t even get to do a proper Tarzan yodel because my yell came out like a strangled gurgle.
Then two of our group started arguing about whether I had to pay a rainforest restoration penalty for destroying flora, which quite thoroughly annoyed me. Nosy Parkers!
Myrtle stuck up for me and informed them haughtily that she could tell the vine was frayed and I probably saved the life of some primate by pulling it down before the primate got hurt on it.
We all looked at her, speechless really, but that did manage to shut up the bigmouths. And by then the guide was quite far ahead of us, so we all hurried to catch up.
Also, we didn’t want to miss lunch. I told Myrtle I hoped it would be more Jumping Meat and Manioc so she could treat us to another interesting episode.
She stuck out her tongue. Very rude, don’t you agree? And Miss Manners would certainly not approve.
To be continued…