"A" is for
Jun. 8th, 2004 05:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanThe simplest of human desires results in the creation (or destruction) of wildlife habitat.
At the Kapawi Ecolodge and Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest, they are proud of their limited impact on local wildlife. The management works alongside the indigenous Achuar people, who serve as nature guides and help to steward the land wisely. The guests' cabins are perched on stilts over the river. The nature paths are regularly abandoned so that the forest can reclaim them. At night, "lights out" is the rule, to avoid disrupting the routines of nocturnal animals.
The staff is coached to give the impression to the guests that they are experiencing true wilderness, undisturbed by humans. If you want to spend time in a Neotropical rainforest, hundreds of miles from civilization, this was the place. Truly it was the most remote location I have ever been. And yet, the part of me that writes "The Urban Pantheist" couldn't help but wonder about this small ecotourist settlement in the jungle. I saw tropical kingbirds over and over again, and finally asked one of the staff naturalists if these birds were for some reason drawn to Kapawi. The naturalist bristled at the question, nervous perhaps that I was not enjoying a wilderness experience, but rather on the verge of feeding ducks at the park.
Human impact can be profound: our species is directly responsible for the extinction of thousands of others. While we have driven large mammals to the edges of the edges of the wilderness, we have inadvertently welcomed rodents and seed eating birds into our cities. Driving away some animals creates vacancies for others, and the creation of new kinds of spaces means welcoming new animals to occupy them. Simply creating a building and warming it year-round creates a tropical zone for tropical animals like cockroaches, houseflies, house centipedes, and opossums.
At Kapawi there is a gazebo-like structure, with a roof but no walls. Inside are hammocks and benches that guests can laze away on, protected from the near constant rain. The soil everywhere is thin muddy clay, constantly damp and slimy. Everywhere but in this little gazebo, where the floor is perpetually dry, fine sand. In the places where the guests feet won't tread (under the benches, along the support beams) there are dozens of tiny funnels in the sand. Insects have pushed their little oval bodies down into the sand, winding down in a spiral and flicking out grains with their oversize mandibles. They wait in their traps for ants to stumble along. An ant in the trap slides toward the bottom of the slick funnel, while the beast at the bottom hurls sand at it with its jaws. When the ant is caught it is drawn under and its fluids are consumed. Later, the husk of the ant is tossed out in pieces.
This animal, the antlion, like its prey, is wingless. [Edited to remind myself: the adults have wings, and flew to this sandy spot to deposit their eggs below the hammocks. I can't believe I let this fact escape my mind at the time. jt, 2010] Did it crawl through the forest (backwards, which is how it crawls) many miles to discover this sandy oasis? Out of the sand it has no protection, and would quickly be eaten by birds or one of the millions of other insect species in the Amazon. The antlion in the funnel is only the baby, the sexually immature. It lives this way, depending on the species, for months or up to three years. It metamorphoses into flying creature, elongated like a dragonfly, but distinctly different as well. It lives for days or weeks, mating and laying eggs and dying, like so many flying insects. Compared to the well-studied larva, popular with insect enthusiasts on every continent, little is known about it. The adult antlion flies to find an area with suitably dry sandy soil to lay her eggs. How far had the Kapawi antlions' mother come, to lay her eggs under the hammock gazebo? Perhaps there are sheltering overhangs at a nearby riverbank, maybe a cave opening, or the mouth of a hollowing tree. The antlion parent may have, however flown for miles over days to find this suitable habitat for her larvae.
The simplest of human desires--a place to stay dry--inadvertently results in the creation of suitable antlion larvae habitat. And every human desire, when effected into a change of the landscape, will do the same. On the one hand, there will probably never be the imprint of a jaguar's paw or a tapir's foot in the sand at the Kapawi hammock gazebo. But anywhere (in the world) we have kept the rain off the sand, the antlions, however unintentionally, are welcomed.
Online references:
http://www.kapawi.com/html/en/ecolodge/ecolodge.htm
(Includes a picture of the hammock gazebo in use [by humans])
http://allsands.com/Science/Animals/howtoidentify_vaj_gn.htm
http://www.antlionfarms.com/ (Thanks, rwblackbird!)
cross-posted to invertebrates, pantheists
At the Kapawi Ecolodge and Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest, they are proud of their limited impact on local wildlife. The management works alongside the indigenous Achuar people, who serve as nature guides and help to steward the land wisely. The guests' cabins are perched on stilts over the river. The nature paths are regularly abandoned so that the forest can reclaim them. At night, "lights out" is the rule, to avoid disrupting the routines of nocturnal animals.
The staff is coached to give the impression to the guests that they are experiencing true wilderness, undisturbed by humans. If you want to spend time in a Neotropical rainforest, hundreds of miles from civilization, this was the place. Truly it was the most remote location I have ever been. And yet, the part of me that writes "The Urban Pantheist" couldn't help but wonder about this small ecotourist settlement in the jungle. I saw tropical kingbirds over and over again, and finally asked one of the staff naturalists if these birds were for some reason drawn to Kapawi. The naturalist bristled at the question, nervous perhaps that I was not enjoying a wilderness experience, but rather on the verge of feeding ducks at the park.
Human impact can be profound: our species is directly responsible for the extinction of thousands of others. While we have driven large mammals to the edges of the edges of the wilderness, we have inadvertently welcomed rodents and seed eating birds into our cities. Driving away some animals creates vacancies for others, and the creation of new kinds of spaces means welcoming new animals to occupy them. Simply creating a building and warming it year-round creates a tropical zone for tropical animals like cockroaches, houseflies, house centipedes, and opossums.
At Kapawi there is a gazebo-like structure, with a roof but no walls. Inside are hammocks and benches that guests can laze away on, protected from the near constant rain. The soil everywhere is thin muddy clay, constantly damp and slimy. Everywhere but in this little gazebo, where the floor is perpetually dry, fine sand. In the places where the guests feet won't tread (under the benches, along the support beams) there are dozens of tiny funnels in the sand. Insects have pushed their little oval bodies down into the sand, winding down in a spiral and flicking out grains with their oversize mandibles. They wait in their traps for ants to stumble along. An ant in the trap slides toward the bottom of the slick funnel, while the beast at the bottom hurls sand at it with its jaws. When the ant is caught it is drawn under and its fluids are consumed. Later, the husk of the ant is tossed out in pieces.
This animal, the antlion, like its prey, is wingless. [Edited to remind myself: the adults have wings, and flew to this sandy spot to deposit their eggs below the hammocks. I can't believe I let this fact escape my mind at the time. jt, 2010] Did it crawl through the forest (backwards, which is how it crawls) many miles to discover this sandy oasis? Out of the sand it has no protection, and would quickly be eaten by birds or one of the millions of other insect species in the Amazon. The antlion in the funnel is only the baby, the sexually immature. It lives this way, depending on the species, for months or up to three years. It metamorphoses into flying creature, elongated like a dragonfly, but distinctly different as well. It lives for days or weeks, mating and laying eggs and dying, like so many flying insects. Compared to the well-studied larva, popular with insect enthusiasts on every continent, little is known about it. The adult antlion flies to find an area with suitably dry sandy soil to lay her eggs. How far had the Kapawi antlions' mother come, to lay her eggs under the hammock gazebo? Perhaps there are sheltering overhangs at a nearby riverbank, maybe a cave opening, or the mouth of a hollowing tree. The antlion parent may have, however flown for miles over days to find this suitable habitat for her larvae.
The simplest of human desires--a place to stay dry--inadvertently results in the creation of suitable antlion larvae habitat. And every human desire, when effected into a change of the landscape, will do the same. On the one hand, there will probably never be the imprint of a jaguar's paw or a tapir's foot in the sand at the Kapawi hammock gazebo. But anywhere (in the world) we have kept the rain off the sand, the antlions, however unintentionally, are welcomed.
Online references:
http://www.kapawi.com/html/en/ecolodge/ecolodge.htm
(Includes a picture of the hammock gazebo in use [by humans])
http://allsands.com/Science/Animals/howtoidentify_vaj_gn.htm
http://www.antlionfarms.com/ (Thanks, rwblackbird!)
cross-posted to invertebrates, pantheists
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 08:31 am (UTC)I'm suggesting Boletus and Bot fly for B!
whoops I was logged in as you!
Date: 2004-06-08 08:48 am (UTC)Re: whoops I was logged in as you!
Date: 2004-06-08 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 09:22 am (UTC)The poor Kapawi person, I mean, you can have a low impact ecolodge but not a NO impact ecolodge. People breathe etc.
The good news is, Rachel brought in blueberry muffins that are TO DIE FOR. I will bring one home for you.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-08 10:04 am (UTC)