The whooping calls of howler monkeys were an effective alarm. I rolled up my mosquito net and hastily yanked on the pair of skinny jeans I had draped over the chair next to my bed. Ugh. They were still wet from yesterday’s rain. My luggage had gotten caught in LAX on my way to Lima, and even though I’d waited an extra day before heading to Puerto Maldonado, it hadn’t caught up with me. I’d just have to grin and bear it for now.
Soon, we set out on the trail — we being Jeff Cremer (an award-winning photographer), Aaron Pomerantz (entomologist for the center), our guide from the Tambopata Research Center, Frank Pichardo, and myself. “There’s something you’ve gotta see,” Aaron said. As we rounded the bend in the trail, it was obvious what he was referring to — in front of us stood a tall tree covered in strange, raised yellow spots. “What are those?” I asked him. He didn’t know. But while colorful bulbs had caught Aaron’s eye, what really intrigued him was what he found living amongst the canary protrusions: a caterpillar he’d never seen before, tended to by ants. Jeff zoomed with his macro lens while Aaron collected some of the larvae to hopefully raise into adults.
I picked at one of the bulbs. The yellowish dome seemed to erupt from the bark, sometimes with a brownish cup at the base. The bulb itself was firm, but not that tough — my fingernail easily penetrated and split it in half. No visible spores, nothing to suggest they were the fruiting bodies of some fungus. The bulbs seemed plant-like, though unlike any plant parts I’d ever seen. There are trees that have fruits which burst from the trunk and branches, but those fruits are much larger, and this tree had dark, larger fruits on higher limbs. The yellow bulbs just seemed out of place, like they didn’t belong.
It turns out they didn’t.
