"Todos los pescados..."

It's winter in Wisconsin, and since convalescence has atrophied my leg muscles to the point where I can't do anything fun outside anyway (and I live in fear of my skis...), I find myself in front of this here computer more often than I'd like. And for the first time in a long while, I have time. Lots and lots of time...

This arrangement happened organically while I was cleaning, and it feels very apropos. 

And so, at long last, I've begun the monumental task of sorting through all ~1500 pictures I somehow managed to take (and steal from others) during my time in Peru.

For the record, I'm inherently against the concept of taking pictures to facilitate memory..., but in this instance I'm willing to make an exception because it helps tell the story. The fish community of the Pacaya-Samiria is one of the most diverse and understudied in the whole wide world, and my hope is that this record serves as a snapshot in time to document the tiniest fraction of what's lying beneath the surface. In a very literal sense, at any given moment, we could have pulled a species of fish from the river that was completely unknown to science, and that is truly amazing.

Case in point: Pool and I still don't agree on what this fish is...

So for the fish-lovers and the apathetic alike, click the link and behold: "Todos los pescados of the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve (Peruvian Amazon), captured during 2 months of the summer when the water was falling fast." This album features whole fish, parts of fish, fish teeth (I'm admittedly obsessed), people holding fish, and a very special photo of a tree that can KILL FISH (true story). I promise to add captions eventually so it's a better resource...

I tried so hard to sell the kiddos on just how cool these fish were, but hopefully the pictures tell the story better than I ever could.

Thank you, as always, for reading.