Mammals of Panama
From August 18th- 26th of 2003, I visited central Panama, staying at the wonderful Canopy Tower, in Soberania National Park (check out my
Links for the Tower's lovely website.).Click here for my Panama
journal, including photos. My primary activity on the trip was birding, but many hours spent in the rainforest yielded an assortment of other creatures. In its position as a land bridge
connecting North and South America, Panama contains an interesting mix of wildlife characteristic of both continents.
The images below are digital stills from video of some of the mammals I was fortunate enough to see, and film. The rainforest surrounding the Panama Canal, in central Panama, provides excellent habitat, but it is still generally close to human habitation and activity; it's exciting to think
of the wildlife that one might see the considerably more remote eastern and western portions of the country.
Multitudes of Monkeys
The most frequently encountered mammals, both at the Tower and on almost all field trips, were several species of primates. The least easily observed were the tiny Geoffrey's Tamarins, which were seen on several occasions, but they moved quite quickly from tree to tree high in the canopy. The best opportunity I might have had to film this species was when they came in to a tree at eye level next to the veranda at the Tower, but they were quickly scattered by a Black Hawk-Eagle, a large bird of prey quite capable of taking a tamarin for lunch.
One afternoon I took a boat ride up the Panama Canal, and the surrounding reservoir, Gatún Lake, with the owner of the Canopy Tower, Raúl Arias de Para. After visiting a property at the north end of the canal, a potential new eco-lodge site, our boat captain took us on a little tour
of some of the swampy backwaters and small islands of the lake. I was unprepared for the sight of a small troupe of Central American Spider Monkeys (pictured above) on one of the islands, and even less prepared for them to come to the water's edge to grab some bananas we offered them! There
are several troupes of this species on nearby Barro Colorado, but access to that large island is restricted, as it is maintained as a research station by the Smithsonian. This troupe was one of the most easily accessible in the area, and as such, we were not the only people to come bearing gifts.
The same was true of the White-throated Capuchins, pictured below, we encountered shortly thereafter. A small boat with a few
tourists arrived about the same time we did to offer some fruit. The most charming part of this stop was that a mother with a baby on her back came in for handouts, and shared the bananas with her young one. I have mixed feelings about this activity; on one hand, I am uncomfortable
with wild animals of any sort becoming acclimated to human presence, as this usually has negative repercussions for the animals. On the other hand, the remote location of these monkeys limits the extent of human contact, and their endearing behavior makes them a minor tourist attraction, which in turn may
offer incentive to locals to protect both the animals and their habitat. And, mixed feelings aside, the encounter was a heck of a lot of fun!
The Capuchins were encountered several other times during the trip, but by far the most common primate in the area was the Mantled Howler Monkey, featured in all the photos below.
Before dawn each morning, the unearthly roars that give these monkeys their name could be heard in the forest around the Tower. Occasionally I would hear this remarkable sound during the daytime, but they would never howl when in view (the open-mouthed adult below is yawning, not roaring). I encountered troupes of howlers
every day, sometimes stopping for extended visits, although we were careful not to linger too long, as the monkeys cease to engage in normal activity while we were near. Howlers struck me as much more cautious than other primate species, always keeping one eye on us, but their very cautious nature made them easy to observe at length. The reason for the "Mantled" portion of
their name can be seen in the picture at top left, as they show a very red back under direct sunlight. A number of young howlers were also observed, including the fairly independant youth pictured bottom left, and a very young one clinging tightly to his mother at bottom right.
The Incredible Sloths
Perhaps the easiest-to-observe mammal, and certainly the most easily filmed, were the sloths. There were two species in the region, Hoffman's Two-toed, and Brown-throated Three-toed (the "toes" actually refer to their claws). Although I saw the former on several occasions, the latter was much more common, and is pictured at the top of this page and below. It often could be found feeding on the leaves of a large cecropia tree within easy view
of the Tower's viewing platform, and its remarkably slow-motion behavior made it ludicrously easy to capture on video. Sloths are a taxonomic oddity; they are classified in the same order as anteaters and armadillos, although the characteristics they share with these creatures are not obvious to anyone but zoologists. The appearance and behavior of sloths is simply fascinating. The facial pattern of the Three-toed Sloth is enchanting, looking for all the world like
a somewhat dim-witted smile. Why shouldn't they be happy? The biggest difficulty they seemed to face on a daily basis was the insects that crawled onto them in the trees, which they remedied by the (of course) slow scratching
pictured below left. There is really no need for them to move quickly- their only natural predators are jaguars (who can't reach them in the highest treetops), and the very rare Harpy Eagle. I doubt human hunting is much of an issue, other than for target practice; I've never heard of sloths described as particularly good eating ("Sloth- the other white meat!"). Their slow metabolism confers the evolutionary advantage of requiring little food to ensure survival, and a low-energy diet consisting
mainly of cecropia leaves may demand a sedentary lifestyle. In John Kricher's A Neotropical Companion (an indispensable book, the bible for amyone interested in rainforest ecology), he comments that sloths only come to ground about once a week to- ahem- answer the call of nature, a task that requires a full half-hour to complete (think of all the time we waste in the 'loo!). I could not get enough of these delightful creatures, who've turned laziness from a deadly sin to an asset!
And the List Goes On...
Although the above were the most frequently encountered mammals on the trip, there were others that made somewhat regular appearances as well. One of these was the
Central American Agouti, a medium-sized rodent which could often be heard crunching loudly, and often seemed quite unafraid of
quiet observers. The most remarkable rodent of the trip was the enormous Capybara, the largest rodent in the world, which even at the great distance at which we saw it seemed the size of a small rhino. This creature is rare in Panama, but a small herd fed habitually near the Ammo Dump Ponds in Gamboa, thrilling everyone in our group.
Two other favorites are pictured below; at left, the fairly common Red-tailed Squirrel, which led me on several wild goose chases in my efforts to film it. And at right is a creature we saw only once, the Northern Tamandua, an anteater, which Jesse Fagan spotted foraging on termite mounds high in a tree along Pipeline Road.
Friends have commented that they were surprised to hear of an anteater in a tree- this is likely because most people's experience with anteaters is seeing the Giant Anteater on nature programs, a species which lives in the savannas of South America, where, indeed, they feed mostly on the ground. The Tamandua is in fact a mostly arboreal species.
Another exciting find was a West Indian Manatee, which surfaced briefly in front of us on our Panama Canal boat trip. As in most of its range, the biggest threat to this enormous, fascinating creature is boat traffic- our boat captain was thankfully alert to the manatee's presence, and was able to avoid collision. There were also large numbers of bats around the Tower, none of which I had the skill to identify; I simply classified them as
"big" or "small". It would be fascinating to be involved in a mist-netting project involving bats, or to learn to i.d. them by vocalizations.
Finally, there's the delightful White-nosed Coati, an animal whose range extends across two continents, from the southwestern United States all the way to northwestern South America. These relatives of the raccoon
could ofen be seen foraging in small groups along roadsides, although they would scatter at the approach of a car. The images below are of an individual we were fortunate enough to spot on a walk down Semaphore Hill, at the Tower; unfortunately, a rather clueless member of the group kept approaching the animal, driving it up into the trees, where I was lucky to be able to continue filming it.
There's any number of mammals still to be seen in Central Panama: jaguars and other felines, tapirs. kinkajous, olingos, armadillos, and more. The discovery and observation of mammals
is one of my favorite diversions during my birdwatching forays, and this region offers so much variety that anyone with the slightest interest in nature must stand in awe. I can sum it up in two words: Visit Panama!
You won't regret it....
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