Project Category: Research

The list of stick insects, or phasmids, and of the various true bugs, grasshoppers and cicadas recorded from Panguana by ZSM workers and several cooperation partners has kept growing for years.

One fascinating research focus are the systematics and morphology of the bizarre and often tiny thorn bugs (Membracidae) with their fantastic protuberances. Some specimens identified at the ZSM are photographed in a Scanning Electron Microscope (see http://meg-bayern.de/3d-rem-bilder/) or even x-rayed in micro computed tomography (micro CT). The latter is a high-tech method that allows three-dimensional...

Studies on Panguana’s freshwater mussels began at ZSM in 1980. Since then, the highly sensitive responses of these animals to changes in their environment have made them highly important as indicators of climate change and its consequences in Peruvian Amazonia.

Documentation of Panguana’s millipedes (Myriapoda) and arachnids has been intensifying since 2013, in collaboration between ZSM, the Museum of Natural History in Lima, and various European specialists. The study addresses the systematics, faunistics and ecology of the entire ground litter fauna. For the first time in Amazonian Peru, the terrestrial mites are being examined comprehensively...

The forest canopy at Panguana has become a research arena very recently. Since the year 2014, tree tops are now sampled especially for diurnal and nocturnal butterflies, in collaboration with the Staten Museum for Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal (Canada) are studying the electric fish at Panguana, particularly the territorial behavior of South American knifefish. In general, the fishes of Panguana have been studied relatively little

In the 1980s the amphibians and reptiles of Panguana were the topic of many studies and publications. The groundwork laid then is built on by current research aiming to clarify the systematics among local members of those animal groups. This work is performed in collaboration between the ZSM, the State Museum for Natural History Stuttgart...

From 1968 to 1971 Maria Koepcke surveyed the bird species in the area. Her unpublished data are now being revised in cooperation with the Museum of Natural History in Lima and the Ornithological Society in Bavaria, in preparation of a publication to present an up-to-date Avifauna of Panguana.

Bats are important key species in environmental monitoring, and especially informative concerning the effects of climate change. A comparison between the species spectrum of today and the data on Chiroptera compiled in the 1980s shows differences to be studied further within a larger research project. In the course of Juliane Diller’s dissertation work on the...

A Nine-banded Armadillo, Dasypus novemcinctus A checklist of the numerous mammal species occurring at Panguana has been published (Hutterer et al. 1995). Their biology has been studied relatively little, however, especially concerning small animals like rodents, e.g. mice, spiny rats (Echimyidae), etc. Several studies on related topics are in the planning stages. The local species...