Near the Amazon, at lower elevations, the mosquitos carry the virus that causes dengue fever. Higher up like here in Vilcabamba, dengue fever is not as much of a concern-but officials do occasionally spray pesticide for “pockets” of dengue fever. Mosquitos tend to annoy us at night while we are trying to sleep. There are a handful of mosquito personality types. The most common is the dancer that does a ballet over the ear, hesitant about committing, swooping in and out of earshot until finally it lands to end the suspense. Top Gun will buzz the ear at very low altitude and maximum velocity before mounting an attack and may be the same guy that pulls a kamikaze move by diving straight into the ear canal, at high speed, bouncing around the opening like a basketball that just won’t drop into the hoop. The stealth unit is never heard, but is just magically “there” sucking away. Is it smart and drops from high above floating down soundlessly?
When it is apparent at bedtime that the mosquitos will be a problem, we just give up and put on repellent. We have tried repeatedly to purchase mosquito nets, but Christelle had one in Paris and they do not breathe well and she would wake up in the middle of the night needing fresh air. Either the style we want is not in stock at the stores, or they try to sell us one for a single bed and tell us it is for a double. Usually the repellant works, but sometimes we have to reapply in the middle of the night. There is one mosquito personality type that could be called Agro. It does not care about repellant or how much you put on. It is a very aggressive, determined, persistent mosquito and torments us once or twice a month. In this case, Peter goes to the bathroom and heads over to the kitchen for a glass of water and to see what the cockroaches are up to.
A see-through butterfly.
Marching along in single file formation parallel to the edges of the counters and walls, turning at 90 degrees, creating geometric patterns in a militaristic manner and sweeping the surface for crumbs with their antennae, the cockroaches are very methodical until the human presence is detected and then it is every roach for him/herself. Poof-they are gone. They scatter and disappear into tiny cracks so quickly a person is unsure of how many were there a fraction of a second ago. It is 3am and the mind is splotchy from lack of sleep. This is our first exposure to cockroaches and we are learning about their behavior. There is one cupboard the cockroaches frequent that we are unable to seal and once in a while we bust one doing its business. Christelle nails it with a spray of water and essential oils she uses for cleaning which dazes the heck out of it, facilitating scooping it up in the bug container that we used to catch the rat. Once she found a supposed dead cockroach on its back and whisked it into the dust pan only to realize it was alive and it escaped before she could catch it. They are very vulnerable when flipped on their back. Maybe they play dead or are exhausted from trying to upright themselves and are resting or sleeping. We chuck them in the irrigation ditch and as long as the water is moving fast, off they go. Otherwise they cling to the ditch and hang on for a long time, or crawl out against the current. Very resilient.
Spiders are about as big as the palm of the adult hand and are pretty docile. Some move fast but not like the cockroach. We heard that spiders in Nicaragua are much bigger, like the size of the whole hand including the fingers, and will not fit past the gap underneath an interior door. One day we discovered a large flying ant-the body was at least 2” long. Peter crept up and caught it in the plastic container and it tried to fly away. It was like holding a small chainsaw with the throttle wide open. When released outside, it hooked a 270 degree turn at high speed and flew into a birdhouse like it knew exactly where it was going. Gnats fly up in the face at times and we tried various solutions and eventually eliminated the fruit fly infestation we had in the kitchen. There are ants about a ¼” long with crab-like pincers that really hurt when they bite. More prevalent are tiny ants 1/16” in length that are just a general nuisance. Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon tiny flying mosquito-like bugs come out and we take refuge indoors, shutting windows and the door.
All in all, none of the bugs are a constant hassle. We could go the chemical route but did not come to Ecuador to exist in a chemical-laden environment. The home we live in has more modern accommodations than the places Christelle visited in Peru 15 years ago. Back then the electric showerhead was an older design that would randomly shock a person, which sounds disconcerting. Once she was taking a shower and felt something else odd and looked down to see a frog on her foot. It came out of the drain to warm up.
A tarantula had made its nest in our bedroom, in a dark corner behind Peter's suitcase. Peter caught it in this plastic container which already contained a cockroach caught the night before. See what happens when a tarantula and a cockroach share the same house...
The cockroach ended up losing a leg in the battle, but no other encounters occurred afterwards. Peter released both bugs in the bamboo patch in the afternoon.
Early morning surprise busted behind the coffee maker. This is a medium size tarantula. Tarantulas are friendly spiders, they can be walking past our feet without being scared or agressive.
Check out the design on this moth! The two eyes at the bottom are meant to scare off predators. This moth is 6.5 inches long.
Angelina said that some butterflies have big dots like this so that spiders would be scared of them when they get caught in a web.
This butterfly looks like a leaf
This monarch butterfly stayed with us a couple hours while we went to the market and walked back home.
Check out this movie of a spider weaving its web, you can see all the details of the weaving:
This beetle got caught on only one strand of a spider web.
This insect was on the wall in our bedroom. It has 26 legs.
This one is a "machaca".
Check out this ant carriage. It went around in circles on our kitchen counter for half an hour then disappeared.
Spiders will take over an area in groups and stay in the same spot for months. Once their webs are too old and have become impossible to maintain, they leave, almost all at the same time. Butterflies look like they are able to weave their way through the maze of webs. Hummingbirds go pick at spiders, teasing them on the back and fly away.
We found this dead scorpion inside our house. Their bite is very painful but not poisonous.
This tiny insect has two claws at the end of its limbs and walks sideways like a crab. We think that Peter once got stung by one of these in bed and it hurt! They are just a couple millimeters long.
It was not in good shape since the cats had gotten a hold of it. But it was able to defend itself, check out this horror movie:
1 comment:
Great article ! Would a cat help to get read of some of these insects ?
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