Qualla: Marañón Dry Forests https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Marañón Dry Forests https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests Marañón Dry Forests: Introduction https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Eufrosine, CC BY-SA 4.0. Look at a satellite image of northern Peru and you will find a strange green fingerprint pressed into the Andes. East of it: the saturated emerald of the Amazon. West of it: the cold, pale tones of the western cordillera. Between them, running along the Marañón River and its tributaries, a narrower, drier ribbon - not desert, not jungle, but something biologically stranger than either. The Marañón Dry Forests cover more than a million hectares of inter-Andean valley, and they are, botanically, the richest of their kind anywhere in the Andes.

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Image: Eufrosine | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Marañón Dry Forests: The Rainshadow https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Bagua, CC BY-SA 4.0. The forest exists because of what the Andes block. Moisture-laden clouds roll in from the Amazon basin to the east and run into the eastern cordillera. They rise, they cool, they dump their rain on the windward slope. By the time whatever is left crosses into the Marañón valley, ...

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Image: Bagua | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-the-rainshadow.mp3 0:06 2 full Marañón Dry Forests: The River That Built It https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit JYB Devot, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Marañón itself rises on the Nevado de Yapura glacier high in the western cordillera, then runs northwest between the two Andean chains, a river boxed in by mountains. It turns northeast, cuts through them at the Pongo de Manseriche gorge, and spills into the Amazon lowlands w...

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Image: JYB Devot | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-the-river-that-built-it.mp3 0:06 3 full Marañón Dry Forests: The Richest of the Dry Valleys https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Feparma, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Marañón Dry Forests hold 184 woody plant species, making them botanically the richest inter-Andean valley dry forest. Sixty-nine species are endemic to Peru, and many of those live in small, isolated pockets. The cast of characters includes drought specialists that look like ...

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Image: Feparma | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-the-richest-of-the-dry-valleys.mp3 0:06 4 full Marañón Dry Forests: Birds in the Gaps https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Asistentedireccion1, CC BY-SA 4.0. The forest is a factory of endemism for birds as well. Twenty-two restricted-range species live here, and eleven are found nowhere else on Earth. The Marañón spinetail (Synallaxis maranonica), a little brown bird of the undergrowth, is endangered. So is the yellow-bellied seedeat...

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Image: Asistentedireccion1 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-birds-in-the-gaps.mp3 0:06 5 full Marañón Dry Forests: Part of a Larger Family https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Srooose, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Marañón Dry Forests belong to a global ecoregion called the Tumbesian-Andean Valleys Dry Forests, which covers 103,000 square kilometers and includes six terrestrial ecoregions strung along western South America. The Tumbes-Piura dry forests of the Peruvian-Ecuadorian coast. ...

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Image: Srooose | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-part-of-a-larger-family.mp3 0:06 6 full Marañón Dry Forests: The Dam Question https://qualla.com/maranon-dry-forests/ Photo credit Public domain. The Marañón Dry Forests have been modified for centuries by farming, cattle ranching, and logging. Patches of original forest remain in the steeper country, but most of the accessible valley is now a working agricultural landscape. The bigger threat is newer. In April 2011, Peruv...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/b/n/maranon-dry-forests-wp/6qbn-mara-n-dry-forests-the-dam-question.mp3 0:06 7 full