CUYABENO LODGE

The Grand Cuaybeno Lake with its regular water table

The Laguna Grande, in the Cuyabeno basin comprises four macro types: 1) non-flooded, terra firma forest located on small hills; 2) swamps, with a vegetation dominated by Mauritia flexuosa palms; 3) forests flooded by white-water rivers, or várzea (Pires and Prance, 1985); and 4) forests flooded by black-water rivers, or igapó (Pires and Prance, 1985) and dominated by the famous Macrolobium trees which are the homes to countless Epiphytes, Herons, blue and Yellow Macaws and Huotzins.

Birds are the jewels of the tropical jungle and with a bird list of over 580 species, Cuyabeno is rising to one of the world's hot spots for birding.

There are also a great number of mammals native to the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, which include dolphins, manatee, at least 9 species of primates, including the night monkey, which was first recorded for the reserve by our staff, different species of both insectivorous and fruit-eating bats, many rodents, varying from the worlds largest one, the Capybara to many mall ground and tree bound creatures. And of course there are the Sloths, Ant Eaters  and a good number of the South American cats, including jaguar and Puma. While we we say that we go birdwatching, of course we keep an eye out for all animals. Ungulates are represented by tapirs, two species of peccary and several species of deer.

When the FAO national parks team selected the Amazonian areas in 1975, Cuyabeno was known for its enormous boas, anacondas and abundance of turtles. It still is. Giant anacondas are seen relatively frequently, sometimes with a characteristic swelling: the remains of a peccary or capybara.

Smaller reptiles include many species of snakes and lizards and several species of iguanas.At night geckos hunt insects around the lights, while in daytime one occasionally finds Iguanas and large Tortoises.   Amphibians are omnipresent, but most of them are very hard to spot, and often one must be satisfied with their orchestras that last through the night.   The diversity of tropical fish of Cuyabeno is extremely rich and includes the infamous piranhas, giant catfish and countless little tropical species.

Primates

A primate study in the reserve, revealed the following information: Of the 19 species of primates (Albuja, 1991) living in Ecuador, 10 to 12 species have been reported in the Cuyabeno Reserve and the Yasuni National Parks in Ecuadorian Amazonia (Albuja, 1994; de la Torre et al., 1995). However, little is known about the ecology, behavior and conservation status of these species. Only few field primatological studies have been done, most of them by biologists of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Quito, in the Cuyabeno Reserve (de Vries et al., 1993, and cofounder of the Cuyabeno Lodge). Ulloa (1988) carried out a preliminary synecological study of the primate species of the reserve, in the area of the Laguna Grande, that was continued by de la Torre and Campos   during 1989 and 1990.

The Cuyabeno Reserve supports a primate community which comprises ten species: Cebuella pygmaea, Saguinus nigricollis, Aotus vociferans, Callicebus cupreus, Callicebus torquatus, Pithecia monachus, Saimiri sciureus, Cebus albifrons, Alouatta seniculus and Lagothrix lagotricha (Emmons and Feer, 1990; Hershkovitz, 1977, 1983, 1990; but see Albuja, 1991). Data on habitat use and reproduction of all the primate species were obtained during 1989 and 1990.

Preliminary results showed that Callicebus torquatus and Pithecia monachus use almost exclusively the non-flooded terra firma forests; the former species shows some preference for edge habitats. Cebus

Generalized birth peaks for all primate species occurred in the dry season, from December through February. The callitrichids presented a second birth peak, limited to some of the groups, in the middle of the rainy season, from June through August.

Further research at the Cuyabeno Reserve has focused on the ecology of the black-mantle tamarin, Saguinus nigricollis (de la Torre, 1991; de la Torre et al., 1992; 1995; Reyes, 1991), yellow-handed titi monkeys,

Additional studies have been done in the Cotacachi-Cayapas Reserve, western Ecuador, on spider monkeys, Ateles fusciceps (Maddem and Albuja, 1989), and in the Yasuni National Park (Albuja, 1994). Currently, field research is being carried out in the Yasuni National Park by the University of California, Davis, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica, Quito, and the Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito; and in the Cuyabeno Reserve by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica, Quito. These studies focus on the ecology and behavior of the different species, such as woolly monkeys, Lagothrix lagotricha, in the Yasuni National Park, and the pygmy marmoset, Cebuella pygmaea, in the Cuyabeno Reserve.