Content Kit from Rainforest ExpeditionsHarpyCAM Content Kit / Fall 2017

What is a content kit?Welcome to the Rainforest Expeditions content kit – a tool that we provide to support the marketing and promotion of Tambopata, Peru as well as our lodges. The content kit consists of blogs posts, Facebook posts, links to articles and images. This content is yours to use as you see fit – you are welcome to edit or amend the posts in whatever way best suits your own channels. We always appreciate a link back! See below on how to credit the content.

This content kit includes:- Links worth sharing- 3 Facebook posts for wildlife enthusiasts- 2 Blog posts (Strangler figs: Silent assassins, diversity engines, rainforest timekeepers by

Dr. Varun Swamy and Blog 2: HarpyCam is Live! By Daniel Couceiro)- 2 Videos – including our favorite HarpyCam video to date

How do I credit the information?We greatly appreciate links and correct crediting info for the content we provide – especially for the photos.

Blogs: Please credit us by writing 'This article or content from this article first appeared on Rainforest Expeditions blog at: blog.rainforestexpeditions.comPhotos: Photo Credit: Rainforest Expeditions Facebook: Tagging our GHT page www.facebook.com/RainforestExpeditionsInstagram: Tagging our handle @RainforestExpeditions

If you have any questions on how to credit a piece of content, please contact me at: pcarranza@rainforest.com.pe

Thanks! Pierina Carranza

Notable This Month: We’re extremely proud of the HarpyCam – the first in the world to capture a Harpy Family. We’re posting weekly videos on our YouTube channel, our lead researcher is blogging monthly in a series called Harpy Diaries and we’ve got a monthly newsletter for consumers too. Bird watchers and passionate naturalists will love this content.

Click here to learn more about the Harpy Cam.

Links worth sharing- We love this article titled ‘Why Do Parrots Eat Dirt in the Amazon’

Videos- There are 12 videos of the Harpy Family up on our YouTube family, they are all

fascinating but my favorite is #1, where Dad brings a monkey home for dinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFazaLPMMGw&feature=youtu.be&list=PLbI535UFO9JyFomD1JNdf9zeo3omc-gP6

- ‘Guardians of the Amazon’ is a powerful short film created by World Nomads about the ‘why’ of why we travel. It was shot at Refugio Amazonas: https://www.adventure.travel/adventure-in-motion/guardians-of-the-peruvian-amazon/

Facebook posts A Brown Capuchin forages in the rainforests of Tambopata. This and several other monkey species can be found on the trails in Tambopata, Peru.

Meet the rare and powerful Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja), the largest eagle in the Americas, a rainforest dweller. Want to see this apex predator in action? Check out the HarpyCam powered by Rainforest Expeditions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbI535UFO9JyFomD1JNdf9zeo3omc-gP6

Any guess why these beautiful butterflies are called ‘88s’ ?

Blogs/Newsletters

Blog 1: Strangler figs : Silent assassins , diversity engines , rainforest timekeepers by Dr. Varun SwamyOriginally posted on the Rainforest Expeditions Blog: http://blog.perunature.com/strangler-figs-silent-assassins-diversity-engines-rainforest-timekeepers

(Borrowing from a J&B whisky commercial from the 1990s…)

Tradition says: "A tree must begin its life from the forest floor".

Tradition says: "A tree shall form a relatively cylindrical trunk".

Tradition says: "A tree shalt not kill another tree".

Well, strangler fig trees clearly did not receive these edicts...or perhaps they did, and decided "To Hell with tradition!" - much to the delight of aficionados of bizarre, spectacular tropical nature of the floral kind.

Ficus ypsilophlebia, a spectacular and emblematic strangler fig species of the Amazon rainforest (Photo: Varun Swamy)

Strangler fig trees, or matapalos (literally, "killer stick") as they are known locally in Peru, belong to the genus Ficus in the Moraceae (mulberry) family. There are about 850 species of Ficus worldwide - the majority of these are found in tropical forests across the world, as well as a few species native to temperate climates such as the widely cultivated common fig Ficus carica.

Strangler figs are a sub-group of mostly tropical Ficus trees that decided to buck tradition somewhere along their evolutionary pathway, beginning their lives on a host tree instead of on the ground. That strategy isn't unusual in itself - Amazon rainforests are replete with epiphytic plants that depend on host trees for habitat, or, in the case of lianas to make their way up to the canopy. However, the ~150 species of Amazonian strangler fig trees are unique in that they eventually end up killing their unfortunate host, in a vividly twisted, slow, silent embrace of death that take place over multiple decades. It is a fascinating process to observe in snapshots, with each strangler fig species appearing to possess a subtly unique "stranglehold" move.

"Embrace of death": strangler fig trees in the process of enveloping and eventually killing their host tree (Photos: Varun Swamy)

Walking through the rainforest and coming upon a strangler fig in the act of arboricide, it is hard not to feel a twinge of pity for the hapless host tree, whose eventual fate is already sealed and can only bear mute witness as their silent assassins weave their slow and suffocating embrace! The end result though is worth the sacrifice of the host tree: mature stranger fig trees are eminently worthy of the charismatic megaflora moniker, with enormous crowns spanning over 30 meters, colossal trunks more a meter thick, and splendidly irregular buttresses and sinuous roots often extending well beyond the width of their crowns.

But strangler figs, bizarre lifestyle and spectacular growth forms aside, are far more than mere ecological oddities. "Who eats figs? Everybody". That was the succinct summary of the

importance of the genus Ficus by eminent tropical ecologist Daniel Janzen, in a review titled " How to be a fig " . Strangler figs are keystone fruit resources - they belong to a very small group of plant species that fruit during the dry season and provide a critical hand to fruit-eating rainforest animals in surviving the boom - and - bust Amazon rainforest . A fruiting strangler fig tree during the peak of the dry season (June-August) in Tambopata is a magnet for frugivores of all sizes, forms and lifestyles: monkeys, birds, bats, coatis, kinkajous, peccaries and rodents...in the canopy, on the ground, all day and night! In making their way over to fruiting strangler figs, frugivorous animals disperse seeds of a variety of other rainforest trees whose fruits they have consumed along the way. So strangler figs act as "diversity engines" by facilitating the seeding of the rainforest floor with a variety of other tree species.

Furthermore, strangler fig trees are very good indicators of the relative age of a rainforest - after all, it takes a while to grow roots down to the ground starting on a host tree trunk or canopy several meters above, eventually kill your host...and oftentimes hide the evidence by growing inward to fill in the gap left behind by your dead and decomposed host! Given that host trees of strangler figs are often enormous canopy trees and charismatic megaflora themselves, it is a good guess that an Amazon rainforest with large, free-standing stranger fig trees is at least a couple of centuries old, and probably much older.

Mature strangler fig trees are rainforest "timekeepers" (Photos: Varun Swamy)

Visitors to Tambopata National Reserve can look forward to meeting a variety of these charismatic silent assassins / diversity engines / rainforest timekeepers at various stages of their

unique journey and lifestyle, at all three of Rainforest Expeditions lodges: Posada Amazonas, Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center .

Blog 2: HarpyCam is Live!

The world´s first HarpyCam in Tambopata, Peru is powered by Rainforest Expeditions

Ever seen a harpy eagle in the wild? If the answer is yes – you’re lucky! Dr. Mark Bowler who has been working in Tambopata for 15 years has only ever seen a harpy eagle four times!

In fact, this apex predator is incredibly difficult to spot in nature - so you can imagine how excited our research team was to have discovered a harpy eagle nest – with an egg (!) – near Refugio Amazonas.

After stumbling on this incredible discovery, our AmazonCam team carefully scaled a nearby tree and installed the worlds first HarpyCam – and today, we are monitoring the activity of the Harpy Couple, Kee Wai and Baawaja and their new (soon to be named) chick.

Harpy eagles (Harpia harpyja) are listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Hunting and habitat loss have contributed to a decreasing population in the birds’ native range in Central and South America. So researchers are especially excited about the opportunities for research and observation that the high- definition, around the clock camera will grant them.

Did you know that HarpyEagles are monogamous? They also have a low reproductive rate, hatching a chick once every two to three years; so scientists eagerly welcomed the new chick last weekend. While both parents incubated the egg, the female, Kee Wai, took on most of the responsibilities. Following the hatching of their chick, both parents are feeding and caring for the youngster. Our research team intends to keep the camera on the nest throughout the chick-rearing phase, which can take up to two years.

Rainforest Expeditions updates their YouTube Channel every week with a new Harpy Video. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbaDkNTb-U