Trip 2-Exploring the Northern Pantanal, Western Brazil

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hello all,

So after exploring the southern Pantanal, and after working for a week in Campo Grande, I left on Friday at lunch time and decided to spend the weekend exploring along a road heading N towards the city of Cuiabá in the state of Mato Grosso. In the early 90's I'd visited Cuiabá a few times to explore the nearby Chapada dos Guimarães, a CP-rich escarpment only 60km N of Cuiabá.

But I didn't expect to drive the ~700km to Cuiabá. My objective that weekend was to explore numerous stands of a native palm tree we call "buriti" (Mauritia flexuosa). These palms grow where there's permanent water, which means they are usually good indicators of CP habitats.

When visiting Cuiabá 15 years ago, I'd gone by bus (~1500km and 30h by bus from my hometown Sao Paulo!!). I remember seeing lots of buriti stands along the road between Campo Grande & Cuiabá. Well, either my memory failed me or else much of the land along this road has now become farmland. However there were still some buriti stands and I stopped to explore a few, but saw no CPs. I did see some nice macaws feeding on the buriti fruit as well as countless ostrich-like "emas" (Rhea americana) in the plantations.

I kept on driving N searching for buriti stands and by that Friday night I was in Cuiabá! The 1st thought on my mind was: I gotta go explore the Chapada dos Guimarães!! I hadn't been there in years. And it's the end of the wet season, CPs will be everywhere!

But I resisted this thought and decided instead to go explore a new area I had never visited before: the Transpantaneira. This is a 150km dirt road that starts in the city of Poconé and heads south into the Pantanal. Again, a fantastic place to see wild animals as well as aquatic Utrics. And my hope was to find, among others, the elusive U.poconensis -- a species that I have never seen and which was described from this area.

So early on Saturday morning I drove ~100km from Cuiabá to Poconé and then nearly the full 150km S into the Pantanal along the Transpantaneira. I confess I got caught up with all the animals again and didn't explore much for CPs.

I saw two sites with aquatic Utrics. One was a roadside ditch containing U.foliosa, U.breviscapa (with cute 4-6-armed floats), and a flowering mass of U.hydrocarpa (one of the rare aquatic Utrics with pink flowers -- almost all are yellow!). The other site was a shallow roadside lagoon with U.foliosa, U.gibba , and a few U.hydrocarpa. But no U.poconensis...

With only 1-2km left before the Transpantaneira ends in the port town of Porto Jofre, the road crossed an area with slick dark mud. The car wheels kept spinning wildly while the back side of the car spun from side to side, and yet I was hardly moving forward. I was foced to turn back.

A good friend of mine and CPer from Cuiabá, Marcos Cardoso, coincidentally drove this same road two days later. At the end of the road, in the lagoons or rivers around Porto Jofre, Marcos found a very strange aquatic Utric which appears to be U.foliosa, but the flowers scapes were very short & fat.

See the pics below.

More later about my short, but CP-rich, visit to the Chapada dos Guimarães...

Best Wishes,

Fernando Rivadavia

Here are some macaws along the Campo Grande-Cuiabá road, feeding on buriti fruit:

Emas are very commonly spotted in farms across western Brazil:

This is one of the better of the 125 bridges along the Transpantaneira road...

The Pantanal is famous for the numerous native bird species:

This is a large deer species native to the Pantanal:

Capybaras were all over, I had to honk my car horn to get them out of the road a few times!

Here's a cool lizard I saw along the road:

This is the roadside ditch where I first saw aquatic Utrics:

Countless U.hydrocarpa were in flower along this shallow ditch:

A group of U.hydrocarpa:

A closeup of an U.hydrocarpa flower:

Here's U.hydrocarpa together with U.breviscapa:

I love those floats on U.breviscapa:

And here you see U.hydrocarpa, U.breviscapa, and U.foliosa:

Last of all, here are some pics taken by my friend Marcos of the strange U.foliosa(?) with fat scapes:

[sundewmatt]

awesome stuff as usual, fernando! by the way, ive been totally swamped again so sorry for not following up with you, please be patient! thanks

matt

[Kiwi Earl]

Tremendous photo essays of the locations. I love the bird shots.

Question: Is Ema a local/Brazilian/ Portuguese name for the Rhea?

Also, love the Capybara; something I must come and see one day.

[Moritz]

Hi,

awesome pics of U. hydrocarpa- I love this species so much! :)

[radmegan]

You've wowed me again!! Those U.breviscapa floats ARE beautiful! All of the photos are beautiful! Thank you for posting these!! Cute capybara... I've only seen them in the Santa Barbara zoo!

[lil_flytrap_kid]

Beautiful shots!

And aww I love Capybaras!

Great birds too.

[jpcuy]

This is one of the better of the 125 bridges along the Transpantaneira road...

Beautifull pics, except for the 'best bridge', (of the 125!!!!), I don't want to see pics of the worse bridges... hehe .... may be I think twice about doing a trip like that... ..

[Fernando Rivadavia]

Hi guys,

Matt, no problem! ;)

Earl, yes "ema" is the name for these birds in Brazil. (BTW, I LOVED that pic of you and the GIANT S.leucophylla!!).

Moritz & Radmegan, I love those U.breviscapa floats too, they're really cute!

Lil_flytrap_kid & Radmegan, capybaras are a bit of a pest in some parts of Brazil, somewhat like deer in parts of the US. In fact you can sometimes find barbecue houses that offer capybara meat here in Brazil. It's OK, but nothing special. If people knew it was the biggest rat in the world, I don't think they would eat it, hahaha! :)

Take care,

Fernando Rivadavia

[Kiwi Earl]

Hey, Fernando, are you aware of the smell of the Capybara when you are close to a group of them like that? Or do they move to quickly when they sense you are there?

[Fernando Rivadavia]

What do you mean Earl? You're asking if they pick up my scent and run or if I smell them because they stink?

Fernando

[Kiwi Earl]

What do you mean Earl? You're asking if they pick up my scent and run or if I smell them because they stink?

Fernando

[Carlos Rohrbacher]

Olá Fernado,

I see that they had been well productive days. 8)

To only consist:

The first bird is one "Tachã" Chauna torquata

The second bird is one "Mutum de penacho" Crax fasciolata

The lizard is a "Víbora-do-pantanal" Dracaena paraguayensis

Earl: The Ema is the Rhea americana

ah, very nice utrics.

Regards.

Carlos.

[sundewmatt]

In fact you can sometimes find barbecue houses that offer capybara meat here in Brazil.

And here in the US, rumor has it some Chinese restaurants pass off rat and cat as chicken. As someone who's eaten way too much Chinese food in his lifetime, I hope that's not true. :)

[Fredders]

Fantastic field trip and billiant photos.

It's great to see other peoples field trips and Cp's in another unique part of the world, especially if I haven't seen or heard of before.

Thanks for posting them Fernando.

Cheers

Steve

[chesara]

Great photos of a lovely place,bridge looks good

Bye for now julian

[Alexander Nijman]

Hi Fernando,

Nice pictures. Nice the Victoria cruziana and those Nandus. Have seen those birds in Uruguay and Argentina. And Victoria near Corrientes in Argentina.

Best regards,

Alexander

[Khelljuhg]

Fantastic photos!