Things have been very busy.

Our flower people, Dr. Tom Daniel and Rebecca Wenk have been very active. Rebecca successfully completed her M.Sc . degree at San Francisco State University, based in part on plants she collected in the islands during GG III (A). She then published her research, with Tom, in the latest Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences; the publication includes a special treatment of the genus Elytraria – E. mariginata is the little flower that Rebecca finally found high up on Pico Papagaio on Príncipe that was so exciting and which we reported last May. (See “News from the Flower people”).

Rebecca among the giant Begonias. Lagoa Amelia. Wenk camera: GG III.

Tom is nearing completion of his monograph on the acanthus (shrimp) flowers of São Tomé and Principe. He is now collaborating with Estrela Figueiredo, a Portuguese botanist who has been on the islands many times and has added much to our knowledge of the botany of the Gulf of Guinea as a whole There are several species of the Acanthaceae found only on São Tomé and Príncipe and one (Heteradelphia paulowilhelmia) which may be endemic at the genus-level. We found this beautiful flower in the middle of Lagoa Amelia at 1400 m. during GG III.

Heteradelphia paulowilhelmia. Lagoa Amelia. Weckerphoto: GG III

Wes Eckerman (photographer) Rebecca and Tom at Lagoa Amelia. RCD phot: GGIII

Another species in Tom’s group that is of particular interest to me personally is an acanth called Justicia thomeensis. This flower is known only from São Tomé and has not been collected since the late 19^th Century – the original collector did not provide detailed locality data, and we have not found it on the islands yet. We hope it is not extinct, or that it was not actually collected somewhere else. Tom has examined the original dried specimens in Coimbra; it is perfectly valid, and he is re-describing the species. Another botanist named Hedrén examined this material, and in a 1989 study found that J. thomeensis is more closely related to a group of species in East Africa than to any in nearby West Africa. I am finding the same strange disparate distribution patterns among my island frogs.

Justicia relationships. RCD

On the crustacean front, Alex Kim, our freshwater shrimp colleague (see January and March blogs) has decided to attend Harvard for his undergraduate studies, and this summer he is doing fieldwork on prawns in Puerto Rico. He tells us that the São Tomé specimens collected for him earlier this year by the marine group “..represent at least two species which, based on morphology, have clear affinities with New World forms. DNA analysis is still ongoing, but the geological youth of these prawns leads me to suspect that we will soon have genetic evidence of trans-Atlantic larval dispersal.” Pretty impressive stuff for an incoming freshman.

A New World prawn.  Alex Kim phot.

A few months ago I had an opportunity to lecture on some of the scientific results of our Gulf of Guinea Island expeditions to a group of biologists at international meetings in Sardinia; afterward in Spain, I met one of the foremost experts on bats, Javier Juste, of Institute Doñana in Seville who has also worked on the islands and has discovered some of the same strange evolutionary relationships that we have. We are about to send him bat tissues from our GGI collection for DNA extraction.

7th Congresso Nazionale, Societas Herpetologica Italica. Sardinia. C. Corti phot.

In earlier blogs, we discussed the fact that mammals make poor dispersers over saltwater barriers; except for some bats, mammals simply cannot survive long enough to colonize oceanic islands. This is because we mammals have to eat regularly in order to maintain constant body temperatures –without “stoking the furnace” by eating regularly, mammals quickly die of exposure. This is specially the case with shrews; because of the ratio of their tiny body masses to their surface area, shrews lose heat faster than any other mammal, and a shrew has eat almost constantly, or it dies of hypothermia. It is perhaps a testimony to the great geological age of São Tomé and Príncipe that shrews appear to have, nevertheless, successfully colonized both islands! If the two species are indeed valid and occur naturally (not brought to the islands accidentally through human agency), then these may be the only oceanic island shrews in the world.

The Sao Tome shrew (Crocidura thomensis). R. Lima phot. 2009

To our knowledge, the photographs above and below are the first ever published of the supposedly endemic São Tomé shrew, Crocidura thomensis. The photographs were taken by Ricardo Lima, a doctoral candidate at the University of London who is studying the environmental effects of various agro-forestry techniques on São Tomé. Ricardo tells us that the shrews are not at all rare; in spite of this, we don’t know much about this little critter, nor the one on Príncipe. The São Tomé species was first discovered in 1886 by the great Portuguese explorer, Francisco Newton and described in 1887.

C. thomensis. R. Lima phot. 2009.

The relationships of these small island insectivores were not assessed until nearly 100 years later by Heim de Balsac and Hutterer in 1982. These authors concluded (on morphological evidence) that the São Tomé shrew was a full endemic species, and that the Príncipe form was an endemic subspecies of Fraser’s musk shrew (C. poensis) which is widespread on mainland Africa.

Jose Lima and friends, crossing the Rio Lemba, Sao Tome 2009.

Now, we are in the exciting position of being able to test these assumptions using modern genetic techniques; just how closely related are the two shrews, based on DNA sequence? Did these mammals arrive naturally by rafting, as we suggest for the amphibians? Perhaps millions of years ago? Or were they hitchhikers on an old Portuguese galleon a couple of hundred of years ago? We hope to find out.

Aspergillus dykowskii and Sarophorum palmicola on monkey pod cacao; Lagoa Amelia. D Lin phot. GG II

Finally, our mycologists have a huge job. As you know before our expeditions began back in 2001, there were only four species of mushrooms known from São Tomé, and Príncipe had never been sampled. Now, after Dr. Dennis Desjardin’s work on GG II (2006) and his subsequent return with Dr. Brian Perry during GG III last year, we now have 225 species (including 75 listed for the first time on Príncipe). Many of these are probably new to science and it will be a major effort to fully analyze the entire collection. But Dennis and Brian took the opportunity to describe one of the new species separately. It has just been formally published in the journal Mycologia, and they have named it after me! It is a weird looking thing, and I will describe the whole process (including the humor sometimes involved) in the next blog.

Here’s the parting shot:

“After the Race.”  Weckerphoto. GG III

PARTNERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund, Hagey Research Venture Fund of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) for logistics, ground transportation and lodging, STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bomfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Bardero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, and the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Monte Pico and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George G. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami for helping make these expeditions possible.

Snakes are not great over-ocean dispersers; they are certainly better than frogs or freshwater fish but not as successful as spiders, geckos and skinks. For instance there are no native snakes in the Hawaiian Islands although they do occur in the Galapagos, but these are much closer to a source continent. In spite of their small size and isolated nature, and Príncipe have a rather surprising snake fauna; there are at least seven species, five of which we know to be endemic - they are found nowhere else. This group includes three species of “lower snakes” or scolecophidians; these are small, blind burrowing forms, two of which are endemic to São Tomé and one to Príncipe.

Rhinotyphlops newtonii, a burrowing scolecophidian from Sao Tome. (D. Lin phot. GG I)

The more advanced snakes (caenophidians) are represented by one endemic, diurnal (daytime) species on each island (belonging to two unrelated genera) and a nocturnal subspecies which is currently thought to be the same on both islands.

Hapsidophrys principis- (cobra sua sua:“snake fast”)- the endemic diurnal  species of Principe (D. Lin phot. GGI).

The nocturnal snakes are known as cobra jita (“snake slow”). I have mentioned these in earlier blogs, and my suspicions are that the two island populations are distinct endemics—we are beginning a molecular study this summer to test this hypothesis.

Cobra jita (”snake slow”), the nocturnal species from both islands?  (Weckerphoto. GG III)

But here I want to talk about the remaining snake found on São Tomé which the islanders call cobra preta (“snake black”); this is the only dangerous species on the islands, and it is a bit of a mystery to me.

The black and white, or Forest cobra - Naja melanoleuca. Ethnobiomed phot.

Widely distributed on the African mainland, this species is known as the forest cobra, or black and white cobra (Naja melanoleuca), and it is quite a venomous and formidable animal. In some parts of its range it can exceed 3 meters in length (10’).

Forest cobra distribution.  map by Nils Boyson

Head of Forest or Black and White cobra, Naja melanoleuca.

This snake, like most true cobras, displays a hood as part of its defense system, essentially making itself look larger in order to warn of its presence. Like all members of family Elapidae, cobra preta has erect front fangs that are hollow and syringe-like, and it injects prey animals with venom that attacks the nervous system (neurotoxin).

[l.]  C. melanoleuca fang showing aperture (Bruce Young) [r.] direction of venom injection (E. Jose)

All of the São Toméans know of cobra preta and fear it, although I have no idea how frequently citizens are bitten. Based on a dead-on the-road specimen at nearly sea level in the south of the island, we know it occurs in lowlands, but I suspect it is more common in the mid-level forests; during GG I, we purchased a number of skins from farmers at Bombaim, which is at middle elevation.

Dead on the road, south Sao Tome. (RCD phot. GG recon 2000)

Joel Ledford with Bom Sucesso specimen. (J. Ledford phot. GG I)

The 2- meter specimen above was killed by locals near the Botanic Gardens and Herbarium of Bom Sucesso at about 1000 m, and we were able collect it during the GG I expedition.

During GG II in 2006, we encountered a very large specimen while collecting along an aquaduct in the Contador Valley on the west side of the island at 700 m; in fact, several of us nearly stepped on it before we were aware of its presence.

On our most recent foray, GG III A, we were again on the Contador Aquaduct when a middle-sized snake was killed by locals around a bend in the road, less than 100 m from where we were working.

Contador Valley specimen (Weckerphoto GG III)

Regrettably, they had beheaded the specimen, and so it was of no value as a voucher specimen; however, we were able to photo-document the animal and I removed some liver tissue for future analysis.

Liver tissue removal. (Weckerphoto. GG III)

The presence of the cobra on São Tomé Island is widely considered to be the result of human introduction, most likely accidental (it is hard to imagine an individual bringing a deadly snake on purpose!). Physically it appears to be identical to the widespread Naja melanoleuca of the mainland. Accidental introduction makes ecological sense to me as well because the species does not really fit into this old ecosystem as we are beginning to understand it. We know that the other higher snakes feed on endemic prey species such as frogs and lizards. But aside from some birds, there do not seem to be endemic prey species that are of sufficient size to sustain a large, heavy-bodied snake like cobra preta; on the other hand, plenty of rats, chickens, etc. have been brought over by humans since the 15^th Century.

Two of the top African cobra experts are Drs Wolfang Wuster of the University of Wales and Donald Broadley of Zimbabwe. They are currently working on this species, and we have been sending them our tissue samples for DNA analysis. Soon, we should know whether or not this large cobra drifted out to the islands on its own and has since been genetically diverging, or whether it was brought to the island through human agency. Wuster and Broadley are currently describing a new species from Ghana that was long thought to be the species Naja melanoleuca.

Our parting shot:

Roadside enterprise on Principe(Weckerphoto GGIII)

PARTNERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund, Hagey Research Venture Fund of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) for logistics, ground transportation and lodging, STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bomfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Bardero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, and the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Monte Pico and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George F. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami for helping make these expeditions possible.

I have some bad news (maybe) and some good news:

The image below is what might be our bad news. During GG III after the zoologists returned to Príncipe, our botanists and mycologists, Tom, Rebecca, Dennis and Brian did a little more work on the big island before flying home. The photo below was taken by Dr. Brian Perry on one of their last days on the islands, and I just learned of this discovery. The first image is of pods on a cacao tree by the roadside near a place called Bombaim, in mountainous central São Tomé. The cacao pods are infested with a fungal pathogen known as frosty pod rot, Monilophthera roreri. Brian and Dennis have positively identified it.

Frosty Pod Rot near Bombaim, Sao Tome Island. B. Perry phot - GG III

Cacao (or cocoa, the source of chocolate) is native to Central America and was brought first to Príncipe in the 1820’s by the Portuguese. During the Portuguese era the cacao industry on the islands was the largest in the world; based largely on slave labor, the industry declined at the end of the slave trade, and new plantations were established in Ghana by Cadburys, the one of the main European buyers and producers of chocolate. While the industry is now much reduced, it is still important to the economy of the Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Healthy cacao pods on Sao Tome. D. Lin Phot. GG II

Frosty pod rot has devastated the cocoa industry in Central America from Mexico to Panama for over 50 years causing up to 80% crop losses in some localities. What we do not know is whether the growers of São Tomé and Príncipe know of the presence of this pathogen on the islands yet; we have just sent this picture together with the precise locality data to our friends in the Ministry of the Environment to alert them. We are hoping the authorities are already aware of the threat and have taken steps to deal with it. The whole frosty pod rot story can be found here:

http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/info-center/documents/Phillips_Frosty_Pod_COPALPresentation.pdf.

Alex Kim at Intel Awards - Media photo.

The good news is that Alex Kim, our high school colleague in Virginia who has been working on freshwater shrimp took 7^th place at the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search. This is a remarkable achievement as the finalists included 40 of the most highly talented kids in the country. He is continuing his study of our São Tomé prawns and will keep us informed of his results; frankly I have a feeling we will be hearing a lot about this young man for years to come. Here is the url with descriptions of the projects, including Alex’s: http://sciserv.org/sts/68sts/winners.asp

Snakes are next in a return to “Slytherin”

The parting shot.

PARTNERS We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund, Hagey Research Venture Fund of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) for logistics, ground transportation and lodging, STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bomfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Bardero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, and the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Monte Pico and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George F. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami for helping make these expeditions possible.

I have just heard that Alex Kim, the student at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Virginia has received the new freshwater prawns GG III (B) collected for him and is in the process of extracting DNA from the fresh tissues. As I mentioned in the last couple of blogs, Alex is a finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, and we are very interested in his progress.  His results will add to our understanding of our own work and the biodiversity of these islands.  When Alex first contacted me, I had some concern that we might have neglected to bring prawns back with us from GG I and II.  We had, of course, and Alex has been studying some of the preserved specimens er brought to him in December.  Just yesterday I found an image of Dr. Tomio Iwamoto carefully processing these some of these same prawn specimens in 2006 on São Tomé (during GG II). This will give you an idea of the size of the critters Alex is studying (although there are two species on the islands – I am not sure which one this is!)

Tomio Iwamoto on Sao Tome.   RCD phot. GG II

The marine biologists of GG III (B) are busily sorting through their material, and I thought an early update was in order.   In the last blog I mentioned that the Dr. Williams had done very well with his octocorals (also known as gorgonians or sea fans), and so had Dr. Van Syoc and Dana Carrison with their barnacles. Dana is Bob Van Syoc’s graduate student at San Francisco State University.

Dana Carrison during a more northerly field trip. NOAA photo

Bob Van Syoc found an undescribed barnacle species on São Tomé during GG II, and it appears that Dana has now confirmed this for Príncipe as well.  And there may well be other new barnacle species; it is just too soon to tell.  Dana is studying the relationship between these barnacles and Dr. Williams’ sea fans.  This is an obligate relationship – some species of sea fans are always found in association with certain species of barnacles.

The barnacle Conopea calceola on a gorgonian.  D. Carrison phot. GG III

Note that the barnacle settles on the gorgonian, and the gorgonian’s tissue (red, in this case) grows up around it.  Along with describing new species and adding to our island biodiversity list, Dana is testing the hypothesis that the different species of barnacles have a preference for certain species of gorgonian upon which to settle. Dana got about 30 different Príncipe barnacles but has not yet begun identifying them or comparing them to the GG II barnacles collected in São Tomé.  Also included in her collections are at least three different gorgonians and their associated barnacles that were not collected previously by the Academy expeditions.

Undescribed species of Conopea on a different species of gorgonian.  D. Carrison phot. GG III

New barnacle species or the relationships of freshwater prawns may not sound exciting to you.  In our biodiversity race, we are studying everything we can, as biodiversity is the sum of all living species in a given area; thus, everything is important as a measure of the uniqueness and past history of these ancient islands.  Think of our mushroom work: before we started, there were only four species known from São Tomé and none from Príncipe; now the people of the islands know that there are at least 220 species, many of them undescribed and unexpected.  The same is true for the ant lions I have documented earlier, and I fully expect similar results when analysis of our collections of diatoms and spiders are completed.  The story of biodiversity can never be told by the study of furred and feathers critters alone.

Here’s the parting shot:

Incipient Dr. Uyeda with collecting party, Nova Cuba, Principe. Weckerphoto GG III

PARTNERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund, Hagey Research Venture Fund of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement  (SCD) for logistics, ground transportation and lodging, STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bomfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Bardero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, and the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Monte Pico and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George F. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murkami for helping make these expeditions possible.

This is a brief update on the return of our people last weekend from Gulf of Guinea III (B). They were the marine component of the 2008-2009 expeditions (see Send in the Marines).  The focus of four of the group was the waters of Príncipe, the much older of the two islands.  The two fish people, Dr. John McCosker and David Catania went a week earlier to dive in São Tomé; neither had been to the islands before, and much of our earlier fish work was freshwater in nature. After the second group of four arrived, the whole expedition flew to Príncipe courtesy of SCD, one of our main sponsors (see “Partners,” below).

As I posted earlier, our first nudibranch (sea slugs) specialist, Dr. Marta Pola-Perez, was on the GG III (B) expedition.  Below are photos of a few of the critters she found.

A possible new species of Phidiana, Principe. Pola-Perez phot. GG III

Flabelina arveloi, Principe.  Pola-Perez phot. GG III

Hypselodoris bilineata, Principe. Pola-Perez phot. GG III

As I wrote before, Dr. Bob Van Syoc, his graduate student, Dana Carrison and Dr. Gary Williams are looking at corals and barnacles and the association between the two life forms.  Dana’s dissertation topic concerns the relationship between what we think is a new species of barnacle and one of Gary’s octocorals (sea fans).

A Sao Tome sea fan (Eunicella). G. Williams phot. GG III

This group did quite well on Príncipe; Bob and Dana collected a barnacle species previously known only from the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, Megabalanus azoricus, thus adding to the island diversity list.  Gary thinks he has now collected more species of octocorals in São Tomé and Príncipe than are found on the Galapagos Islands.

Grad student, Dana Carrison, with sea fan on Principe. B. Van Syoc phot. GG III

Dana, Gary Williams and John McCosker, Principe. B. Van Syoc phot. GG III

Of particular interest is that Bob found a species of shore barnacle at Bom Bom on Príncipe otherwise known only from South Africa. He thinks it was probably brought in by barge carrying building supplies.  So far it seems to be confined to the vicinity of the Bom Bom pier.

Bom Bom pier at night, Principe. Weckerphoto GGIII

John and Dave also well.  Although they said the diving was “spotty” they did manage to sample a bunch of neat stuff, including at least one definite new species.

A new species of Serranus from both islands.  D. Catania phot. GG III

Ichthyologists frequently find new species just by exploring fish markets.  Below is a pot of jacks for sale which John and Dave cannot identify to species.  They will need to compare the DNA of these fishmarket critters with other known species in the genus.

Unidentified species of Caranx in the fishmarket.  J. McCosker phot. GG III

As I have written before, another way for ichthyologists to sample the marine fauna is to get permission to buy odd specimens directly from beach seiners.

Sao Tome beach seine. J. McCosker phot. GG III]

This group was fishing in the bay near Omali Lodge (Marlin Beach Hotel), and like Dr. Iwamoto did during GG I,  John and Dave dealt directly with the seiners for unique specimens.  Detirmining the identity of all of this material takes a great deal of time, but for now it looks as though the Marines of GG III (B) did quite well.

I received some great news while the group was gone. Recall that I mentioned the marine group was going to collect some freshwater prawns for DNA work in a project by high school student Alex Kim in Virginia.  Well, the group got the prawns and by now they are back east being investigated by Alex and his mentor from George Mason University, Prof. Patrick Gillevet.  But the great news is that Alex is one of 40 finalists in the INTEL SCIENCE TALENT SEARCH; his project and scholarship are obviously gaining recognition, and we at the Academy are proud to be able to help out.

Alex has his own website: http://amphidrome.wordpress.com/

Here’s the parting shot: 

Growing up on Principe. R. Wenk photo. GG III

PARTNERS We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund, Hagey Research Venture Fund of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement  (SCD) for logistics, ground transportation and lodging, STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bomfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Bardero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, and the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Monte Pico and Faustino Oliviera, Director of the botanical garden at Bom Sucesso. Special thanks for the generosity of private individuals, George F. Breed, Gerry F. Ohrstrom, Timothy M. Muller, Mrs. W. H. V. Brooke and Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami for helping make these expeditions possible.