I Don’t Like Bugs…
Wow, Those Are Cool Bugs!

I don’t like bugs. OK, let me clarify; I don’t like normal, everyday bugs. June Bugs are nasty. Flies and mosquitos need to be banned from the earth. Beetles are only good for crunching under your shoe. Cockroaches…well, nobody likes cockroaches. And don’t even get me started on brown spiders; I’m scared to death of them. All of them. Even daddy long-legs. But Black Widows don’t bother me…go figure.

But show me a bug that is different than those I normally see and I think they’re cool! That’s one of the reasons I liked the Amazon so much…the bugs are pretty darn amazing.

Except for that dang bullet ant that bit me on the neck; I have nothing good to say about him.

Although we never saw a termite, we saw many termite nests. The Amazon termites build their nests in trees, because the rain forest floods during the rainy season. The nests were huge.

The Yellow-Rumped Cacique build their nests in a tree, usually a tree with a wasp nest. They want the nest to be as close to the wasps as possible, so they fight over who gets the best spot in the tree. They build their nests near wasps so that predators stay away; a lizard, snake or rodent won’t go after birds eggs or chicks if there is a swarm of wasps four feet away. I sure wouldn’t go anywhere near this wasp nest!

We thought this Wolf Spider was pretty. We also liked the harmless millipedes, but centipedes are usually venomous, so we were more careful around those. Of course, the Praying Mantis is always a hit.

OK, I have to tell you, right about now my legs are itching. I am imagining bugs and spiders climbing up my legs. This is a hard article to write!

We saw several tarantulas, but I’m happy to report we did not see a Goliath Tarantula. Those guys are as big as a dinner plate! Google it! Aw, heck, I’ll make it easy for you: click here.

Anyway, here’s some pictures of the type we saw, the Pinktoe Tarantula.

I don’t know what kind of spiders these are.

This one has a really interesting web.


This yellow-bellied guy’s web is almost perfect.


This looks like it might be a type of Water Spider.


I think this one’s pretty cute!

My face is starting to itch.

This is a tailless whip scorpion. These guys look nasty, but they are harmless to humans. They might grab your finger and leave a puncture wound, but no big deal, right? They use their front legs to search for food while walking around on the other six.


This guy’s not a bug, but he’s really cute and he eats a lot of bugs! The darker picture shows one of his cousins, in action. We were out on a canoe just after sunset, and millions of bugs were flying over our heads; the bats had an easy time of it!


The leaf cutter ants are really industrious. The foragers cut off a piece of a leaf about 4 times bigger than they are, then carry the leaf back to their nest. There are smaller ants inside the nest that tend the “garden” of leaves; they grow some type of fungus on the leaves which the colony then feeds on. In this picture you see some ants not carrying anything; we thought they must be the boss ants. But Raul, our guide, explained that they are the defenders; they protect the forager ants from enemies.

These are just some interesting bugs.

This little guy was walking around the bar on our cruise ship; I think he wanted to order a daiquiri! We didn’t get a very good picture of him, but I included him here because you can see how his eyes glowed…that is not from the camera flash!

Next up, some pretty bugs. This first butterfly was absolutely beautiful but we never could get a picture of it with its wings open. The second picture is a pretty blue one.

This dragonfly landed in our canoe one day, just begging us to take his picture.

We couldn’t get pictures of them because of the lighting, but we saw some really cool glow worms. We were in a canoe on a small lake, and after dark the glow worms completely lined the shores of the lake. It was absolutely beautiful!

We’ll finish off with a video of not bugs, but the sounds of bugs. Listen to the cacophony of bugs in the background while we paddle our canoe down a stream in the rain forest.

So, now that you’ve seen my bug pictures, you can understand why I liked the Amazon so much! It was a great trip, and we’ll be visiting this area again in the future!