RAINFOREST BOA CONSTRICTOR MOVIE

It didn’t take any of us long to realize that no matter how hard we looked, we just weren’t in control. We started to find massive sheds after the third day of searching, and by then, I knew they must’ve been watching us. As we worked through their labyrinth I couldn’t help but feel their presence in everything the habitat is just perfect, and there is prey everywhere: Aguti and caiman and capybara, even tapir for the real big snakes.

The tegus and caiman were great consolation prizes, but after a few hours of this, all I wanted to see were the spots of the anaconda.Īnd then, just as I’d start to wonder if they’re even here at all, we’d see the soft imprint of a snake in the grass: anaconda tracks. We spent six hours a day fighting through the thick, deep swamp, being bitten and stung and scratched, on top of cutting through the tangled growth, gripping the machete so hard our hands were raw. Caiman crocodilus, Paleosuchus trigonatus and Paleosuchus palpebrosus are plentiful in this region, along with the mighty Melanosuchus niger-you’ll know when you see one, and it’s best to observe these massive Amazonian predators from afar.Ĭaiman were so plentiful we lost count how many were observed. Golden tegus ( Tupinambis teguixin) seemed to be positioned on every fallen branch, and we would lose count of the caiman we found. It takes guts and at least some degree of physical fitness to fight through the twisted swamp, but the reward is well worth the effort. It’s beautiful, but it’s also brutal, and definitely not a tourist attraction. Swathes of grass float over rich, dark water, where caiman, tegus, tapirs, and electric eels coexist under the shade of half-submerged palms, while a rainbow of macaws call overhead. You’d never find it by accident, and you’d never guess that clambering down through mud and thorns into a secret rainforest valley would reveal such a place. The place I spent the most time exploring, the Madre de Dios region of Peru, is unlike anything I’d ever seen or heard of. Somehow, I managed to walk away from that encounter unscathed.ĭendropsophus marmaratus or marbled tree frog. I’ll never forget the fear of being instructed to stay perfectly still, while my expedition crewmates literally jumped out of the back of the vehicle to get away from me while the guides tried to determine the best way to remove the massive, venomous ant before it inflicted on me what is considered the worst sting of any insect in the animal kingdom. The constant cold showers and jungle sickness-and of course, I can’t forget to mention the bullet ant that fell straight onto my head from the jungle canopy while riding in the back of a rickshaw. Crossing black water filled with piranha on a fallen, rotting palm was a challenge. I had to keep focused on the path ahead, reminding myself why I was out there, doing something I doubt many people would ever sign up to do.įor most people, being in a swamp up to your knees (and sometimes your neck, if you happened to walk into a particularly deep spot) at midnight in the middle of the wild Peruvian Amazon rainforest sounds like a nightmare. Each time something brushed against my leg or crawled across my back in the dark of the jungle, I couldn’t let myself overthink it. This was no resort stay or guided tour-it was the adventure I’d always dreamed of, field herping to the extreme.

RAINFOREST BOA CONSTRICTOR MOVIE

Meanwhile, swamping in the middle of the night, even for this herper, felt an awful lot like something out of a horror movie as I scanned the swampy path ahead for bushmasters, electric eels, and anacondas, of course. Boa constrictors were plentiful under the forest canopy.

Rainforest boa constrictor