Amazonian Reflections

Reviewing the photos from last year’s trip to the Amazonas, I made a shocking discovery. We were not alone as we had thought but surrounded by the most bizarre and frightening creatures. Have a look for yourself in the gallery.

Amongst others you’ll discover four-legged monsters with horns, a giant fish with a pout, an evil alien, a turbaned turtle-bird and a scary spidery thing.

If you want to know what the pictures really represent, tilt your head sideways and look again. The photos were taken from a tributary of Rio Jau that flows into the Rio Negro, a main tributary of the Amazon. On that day it was wind-still and together with the dark tannin-laden water, conditions were ideal for perfect mirror images.

One might say that seeing phantasy creatures in these photos is a testament to our imagination, reflecting a special ability, but is it really? Turning the photos by ninety degrees we have the bilateral symmetry that is prevalent in the animal kingdom. Over the course of our evolution, over millions of years, we were exposed to all kinds of animals, including ourselves, so perhaps the inverse is true and we have lost our ability to not see faces and creatures in random patterns once they have been made symmetric.