EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about the plants of the Amazon

A 353 page book has just been published, Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in Amazonian Life.

A co-production of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and People and Plants International (PPI) it aims to describe all the commercially or medically important plants in the Amazon region, and it is amazingly comprehensive.

For example
For the Buriti Palm (Mauritia flexuosa) there is a description of it's ecology, how they can be cultivated, the average yield (up to 360 kg per tree in a year!), economics (1 litre of Buriti juice costs about $1) and a COMPLETE guide to it's possible uses, including how to make traditional toys.
There is a description of the cultural significance of the plant, the animals that eat the fruit or nest in the branches, and even a recipe for Buriti frozen creme! All illustrated with line drawings.

And, the guide is free! It can be found at...
http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/i2360e/i2360e.pdf

(The) Brazilian Duck

This is a duck, it's in Brazil, and it's name is the Brazilian Duck, which is at least informative, as far as it goes. Actually it's range extends from Venezuela to Argentina, but the majority are, probably, Brazilian.

Again as the name implies, Brazilian ducks are reasonably common. They live in pairs or groups of up to 15, eating seeds, roots, insects and, it has been claimed, fish. The ducklings eat exclusively insects, which has to be a good thing in Brazil, where there are altogether too many insects such as mosquitoes with aquatic life cycles.

A little drab on the ground, in flight Brazilian ducks display their iridescent green wings. They can also be recognised, apparently, by a loud "weeping whistle" in flight and a habit of flying low over the water.

And that's it!, almost all I could find - and half that is from a guide to hunting them! Even scientifically, the only publications are on a rather stale taxonomic debate and an apparent susceptibility to every parasite going.

I know they're small and brown and unobtrusive, but surely they deserve a little more regard than that? Even the name displays a lack of interest, a half hearted attempt to call them Brazilian teals is not much of an improvement. Why not the Guarani dabbler, or Samba pochard or something?
Anyway, that is the Brazilian Duck.