The state of the wild animal life in a country is judged by the road kill as far as I am concerned. America lots of animals and lots of diverse road-kill, Russia no animals on the roads, dead or alive.
South America the dogs are winner , or really the losers, of the “dead by the side of the road” competition. They are closely followed by skunks, pretty little black things with distinctive white stripes which were most common in Uruguay. Guanaco, a type of llama was a large deer sized hit in southern Argentina, the tiny head of this animal didn’t give it much chance for a brain size able to compute traffic. We were often scared on the bikes by the unpredictable and stupid reactions of the guanaco waiting at the side of the road until you were close then racing across in front of you.
In the same areas were the Rhea, a small ostrich type bird that tended to be fast and unpredictable reaching speeds of over 60kph running along side the road, often seen dead in the mornings in the pampas areas.
The heat and humidity of the Missiones area meant lots of small silver snakes pressed into the seal and the occasional hawke trying to get lunch payed the ultimate price.
My favourite is still the soft grey owl from Argentina and close second place to the huge lizard from Uruguay. I would have liked to be here to see when the tarantulas all swarm and driving along is quite crunchy. The occasional big hairy spider was a wonderful sight though, and the best trier award goes to the snake that lunged at me as I rode past.
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