Adventure Travel Panama: Slo-mo Wookie, Flourescent Frogs
October 27, 2000
Bocas Del Toro, Panama
George Lucas was here! Chewbaca is a giant three-toed sloth! They are freakishly slow moving with long humanoid arms. They would almost be cuddly if it weren’t for the three claws at the end of each of their limbs. I was in a motorized canoe when I came upon this fellow. I was within a few feet of him. His head rotated ever-so-slowly and he looked at me quizzically as if to say, Heeeeeey…… yoooouuu’re…… noooooooot…. frooooooooom …..arooouuuund…. heeeeeeeeeeerre….. aaaaaaaaare…… yooooooouuuuuuuu?????? He pulled himself up into a tree like Disney Animatronics on one tenth speed!
I got some photos previously of the smaller variety, different colored, two-toed sloth in Costa Rica. He was so mellow I had to wake him up several times just to get him to make eye contact with the camera.(click here for costa rica page)
The other fauna I found fascinating were fluorescent frogs. I also found and be-friended a fellow studying them. Dendrobates Pumilio. The frog, not the fellow. The guy is known locally as Mark, the Jungle Boy. The frog is known commonly as the Strawberry Poison Dart Frog and comes in a variety of shades, with and without black spots.
The Jungle Boy is a graduate student working under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institute researching communication between frogs.
