Caught on Camera: My night of hell when leafcutter ants stole my TENT… while I was in it (and a tarantula showed up too)

‘It was hell. I’ve never seen anything like it. That night was madness. It was just a nightmare.’

Paul Rosolie tells MailOnline Travel about the night in the Peruvian Amazon that leafcutter ants stole his tent – ​​while he was inside – cutting the nylon fabric into pieces with their pincers and carrying the pieces into the night.

The intrepid American explorer, conservationist and author captured the moment on camera and posted the footage to his Instagram account with the caption: “Another reason why you think you want my job. The walls were breached and I was trapped in a multi-species festival of insect life.”

Multiple types?

Paul reveals that termites, moths, mosquitoes, a centipede, and “insects I can’t even identify” entered through the “fist-sized holes” made by the ants. The footage ends with Paul staring at a tarantula that has also entered.

Paul Rosolie tells MailOnline Travel about the night in the Peruvian Amazon that leafcutter ants stole his tent – ​​while he was in it. Paul captured the drama on camera for posterity and posted the footage to his Instagram account (above)

Paul Rosolie is an intrepid American explorer, conservationist and author

Paul continues in a Zoom chat with MailOnline: ‘Everything was great beforehand. We were standing on a sandy beach on the bank of a stream. Everything was clear. We caught a fish, cooked it in bamboo and then went to sleep. And then, right around midnight, a disaster.

‘It was the first night I used that very expensive, super light tent. It had to be thrown out. I took it to a seamstress at the market and she said, ‘There’s no way this can be saved.’

Was Paul trying to evict the invaders?

“Nothing worked,” he says. ‘I tried bug spray, ran a round of petrol around the tent and then lit it up to try to protect it. The ants didn’t care. I think that encouraged them.”

Paul’s experience with leaf cutters highlights how unsettling exploring the jungle can be, even for seasoned explorers like him.

How do first timers cope in the jungle – are there common mistakes?

Paul says, ‘Where do we even begin! Going into the deep Amazon is like going to Antarctica or Everest. It’s super intense.

Recalling the ant invasion, Paul tells MailOnline: ‘It was hell. I’ve never seen anything like it. That night was madness. It was just a nightmare

Paul said he “tried bug spray” and “ran a circle of gasoline around the tent and then lit it to try to protect it.” The result? ‘The ants didn’t care’

Paul reveals that the ‘very expensive, super lightweight tent’ was completely written off

‘I’ve seen people fall up to their necks in the mud and barely be able to get out. I’ve seen people hit a beehive full of wasps with their first machete swing, be covered in stings and have to be whisked away to a hospital.

“And the things that will get you? Snakes, jaguars, anacondas? No. A lot of the things that will really get to you are things like the bullet ants.

“You reach down to pick up a piece of a flower, and there’s a bullet ant that stings you in the hand, and then for the next two days you have a fever and a headache, and your glands are all swollen, and you This throbbing pain runs through your whole body and you feel like you’ve been shot.’

Paul reveals that termites, moths, mosquitoes, a centipede, and “insects I can’t even identify” entered through the “fist-sized holes” made by the ants. The Instagram footage ends with Paul staring at a tarantula that has also entered

Will Paul be able to enjoy jungles?

Laughing, he says, “It’s my favorite place in the world. I love them. There is so much beautiful life. But you need to know the rules of this very alternate reality.

‘For example, there are trees with points as long as your forearm. So if you were to run blindly through the woods because you got stung in the butt by a bullet ant, you could impale yourself on a tree so badly that you would die.

‘One of the worst mistakes is not realizing that you have to stay clean in the jungle. You have to wash your clothes. You can’t sweat all day and then take your clothes off and then put them back on.”

Why?

“Flounder flies,” says Paul.

Bot flies can lay eggs on sweaty clothing, which are also laid by mosquitoes, and the larvae can crawl under your skin and grow “bigger than an almond.”

Paul adds: ‘They eat you while they are in your skin. And you can’t just pull them out. Some people have to have surgery to get them out.”

Paul has dedicated his life to saving the Amazon from destruction, partly through his ‘Junglekeepers’ organisation, which helps conserve endangered habitats in the ‘vitally important’ Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon (above)

Despite all the dangers and, as Gen Z would put it, the “ick,” Paul has dedicated his life to saving the Amazon from destruction, in part through his “Junglekeepers” organization, which helps keep endangered habitats in “vital important area’. ‘ Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon – ‘one of the most biodiverse and pristine areas on Earth’.

Paul describes the Amazon as ‘the most important terrestrial biological diversity on our planet’.

He explains: ‘It creates climate stability, it contains undiscovered medicines, indigenous communities and endangered species. It is one of the most crucial gifts we have on earth. Losing the Amazon would immediately have catastrophic post-apocalyptic global consequences.”

One way Jungle keepers The fight against deforestation is done by convincing loggers to change careers – and become rangers instead.

Paul explains: ‘We interview the loggers and say, “Hey, can you stop clearing the jungle? And we’ll pay you to be a ranger.”

‘And they are happy to make the switch. Most of those loggers are very nice local people with families who just need a job, and that’s why they cut wood.

‘And then what happens is that they see conservation as something that has led to a better life for them, and so it becomes part of their culture to protect at all costs the Amazon rainforest – the biological crown jewel of the earth .’

For more from Paul, visit him on Instagram at www.instagram.com/paulrosolie on Twitter (‘X’) at x.com/paulrosolie and on YouTube here – www.youtube.com/@junglekeeper. For more information about Junglekeepers, visit www.junglekeepers.org.

Paul has released an audiobook about his Amazon adventures – Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey to the Unknown Tributaries of the Western Amazon.