{"id":569337,"date":"2026-03-29T20:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569337\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T20:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T20:34:08","slug":"the-first-thing-to-go-are-the-eyes-eyes-apparently-cook-very-quickly-flesh-follows-soon-after-and-as-the-animal-becomes-overwhelmed-water-enters-its-mouth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/569337\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe first thing to go are the eyes. Eyes, apparently, cook very quickly. Flesh follows soon after, and as the animal becomes overwhelmed, water enters its mouth.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a river has not one, but two ominous names, it\u2019s usually time to take notice. In the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, there is a nine kilometre waterway known as R\u00edo Hirviente (boiling river) in Spanish, and the Shanay-timpishka (boiled by the heat of the sun) in the local Ash\u00e1ninka language. Sections of the river are so hot, they can boil living things alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Geothermal scientist, Andr\u00e9s Ruzo, was inspired to find and study the river, after learning about it from his grandfather. In 2011, he was guided there by his aunt, where he witnessed locals using the water to cook and clean with, and animals, such as frogs and rodents falling in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing to go are the eyes,\u201d he told the audience of his\u00a02014 TED talk<\/a>. \u201cEyes, apparently, cook very quickly. They turn this milky-white colour.\u201d Flesh follows soon after, and as the animal becomes overwhelmed, water enters its mouth. \u201cThey cook from the inside out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Ruzo and his colleagues, the river was a conundrum. In the shadow of an enormous snake-shaped rock, the Shanay-timpishka begins as a small, cold stream, then quickly morphs into a broad, broiling torrent. In this 6.2 kilometre stretch of the river, which includes a thermal pool and a six metre waterfall, the water temperature reaches up to 94oC. Big, geothermal rivers, such as this, are usually heated by a nearby volcano, but the closest one to the Shanay-timpishka is around 700 kilometres away. So, how does the water get so hot?\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the locals, the river is heated by Yacumama, a giant serpent spirit, who is \u2018mother of the waters\u2019 and embodied in the strange-shaped rock. She is said to give birth to both hot and cold water, and at this point in the river, the water temperature increases.<\/p>\n

Ruzo realised that the water is heated, not be a volcano or a serpent, but by the geothermal gradient of the Earth. Put simply, the Earth\u2019s temperature is cooler on the outside and then gets progressively hotter towards its core. When precipitation falls, in the rainforest and elsewhere, some of it sinks deep into the ground, where it becomes heated. In this part of the Amazon, it then resurfaces into the riverbed via fault-fed hot springs. So, the water here is not actually \u2018boiled by the heat of the sun,\u2019 but by the heat of the Earth.<\/p>\n

Now, Ruzo is concerned for the region\u2019s future. DNA sampling has revealed the presence of unique extremophile life forms in the river. Along with everything in the surrounding forest, these are now threatened by the rampant deforestation of Amazon. The Shanay-timpishka is geothermally and ecologically unique. \u201cIt\u2019s special on a global scale,\u201d he told his TED audience, and it deserves our protection.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a river has not one, but two ominous names, it\u2019s usually time to take notice. In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-569337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}