Just got back from Manu and the experience was amazing! Here is a little taster of some animal life i managed to shoot (with a camera of course). This is for Danny as i know he was looking forward to what i could capture when out in the jungle, and because he is part of my inspiration for wanting to take wildlife shots with an extensive and informative gallery here on Rendo. The following is from Wikipedia: The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin), also known as the Hoactzin, Stinkbird, or Canje "Pheasant", is an unusual species of tropical bird found in swamps, riverine forest and mangrove of the Amazon and the Orinoco delta in South America. It is the only member of the genus Opisthocomus. It clambers around clumsily among the branches, and being quite tame, often allows close approach and is reluctant to flush. The Hoatzin eats the leaves and to a lesser degree fruits of the plants which grow in the marshy and riverine habitats where it lives. One of this species' many peculiarities is that it has a digestive system unique amongst birds. Hoatzins use bacterial fermentation in the front part of the gut to break down the vegetable material they consume, much like cattle and other ruminants. Unlike ruminants, however, which possess the rumen - a specialized stomach for bacterial fermentation -, in the Hoatzin this is the function of the crop, an enlargement of the esophagus. The crop of the Hoatzin is so large as to displace the flight muscles and keel of the sternum, much to the detriment of their flight capacity. Because of aromatic compounds in the leaves they consume and the bacterial fermentation, the bird has a disagreeable, manure-like odor and is only hunted for food in times of dire need. Hoatzins are gregarious and nest in small colonies, laying 2-3 eggs in a stick nest in a tree overhanging water in seasonally flooded forests. The chick, which is fed on regurgitated fermented food, has another odd feature; it has two claws on each wing. When disturbed, the chicks drop into the water to escape predation, then use their clawed wings to climb back to the safety of the nest. This has inevitably led to comparisons to the fossil Archaeopteryx, but the characteristic is rather an autapomorphy, possibly caused by an atavism towards the dinosaurian finger claws, the developmental genetics "blueprint" which presumably is still present in the avian genome. Enjoy! Rich