Water Lettuce Lakes

With Eugenio at the controls, the motor canoe “Mai Kai” nudged her way through emergent grasses in the shallow channel. If lucky, we’d be able to reach a few of the water lettuce beds that floated on the open waters of the interior coche (oxbow). We were already amidst some chorusing treefrogs, but it seemed probable that with the intermittent showers on this humid night, a cacophony of hylid voices would reverberate across the coche.

When we left camp, motor canoe full of chatting herpers, lightning was spearing a seemingly cloudless sky. But weather patterns in Amazonia are capricious, and distant cloud formations are often obscured by the riveredge trees. Storms can sneak up on you before you know there is actually one impending. And such it was on this night. The coche was only a few miles downriver, but in the 20 minutes it took us to reach it, the sparkling stars were obliterated by towering cumulus clouds and lightning activity had increased dramatically.

The nocturnal foray to Mayaruna Coche, often vegetation-clogged, sometimes impassable, is always a highlight. This night we were doubly lucky. Not only had the leading edge of the storm moved quickly eastward, taking with it the lightning but leaving us with a gentle rain, but secondly we were actually able to break through the vegetation and access the lettuce beds.

Within minutes we were nearly overwhelmed by the volume of treefrog voices. While most of the vocalizations were produced by tiny clown treefrog complex species and spotted treefrogs, as we nosed the canoe into the water lettuce the vocalizations of three species of hatchet-faced treefrogs could be heard. I had played up the beauty of the greater hatchet-faced treefrog, Sphaenorhynchos lacteus, so greatly that it would be nearly impossible to return to camp without seeing the species. And see it we did, by the dozens and dozens. It was another successful coche visit.

More photos under the jump...

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.