We have been back from GG V for a week or so now, and Velma and I are still trying to sift through the happy kaleidoscope of our experiences. Our photographer Andrew Stanbridge went on to further adventure with my kids in Ethiopia, so I suspect it will take him longer to decompress!

GG V was different; in over 40 years of fieldwork, this was the only expedition I have led in which I did very little science – mostly outreach and lecturing which were of course our goals this time. But, you can take the boy out of science, but not the science…….. etc. So along with lecturing, distributing posters and meeting important citizens, we did manage to do a little science.

The Sao Tome giant tree frog  D. Lin Phot – GG I

Readers of this blog (Glorious Ghost…. May, 2008) will already know about the endemic Sao Tome giant tree frog that breeds in holes in trees in the higher elevations of Sao Tome Island. Although we have not collected any since 2006, on every expedition I always check one particular tree to make sure its holes are still in use by the frogs. And I keep the location of the tree a secret, as I would hate to see these wonderful critters in the pet trade. This Olea is the only tree we have found with holes low enough to give easy access to the breeding holes.

Olea tree. V. Schnoll phot – GG V

This time we found no adults but obvious signs that the frogs still use them.

Olea tree. V. Schnoll phot.- GG V.

An egg mass was present in one of the holes testifying to the fact that the frogs are still around. I have no idea of population levels as these frogs appear largely to be canopy dwellers, but I doubt they are rare as they can be heard at night calling from high up in the trees.

On the eastern side of the island, our jumping off point for high elevation work like this has always been Bom Sucesso, where the main Trinidade road ends. This combination Park Obo Headquarters, meeting place, tourist destination and overnight facility for hikers and scientists at about 1000m is about as high as you can go by vehicle, and it is also a charming Botanical Garden. Until recently it has also functioned as the National Herbarium, curated by Faustino de Oliviera. Much of our duplicate Academy plant specimens are housed there complete with data labels.

Lagoas, our old friend, guiding tourists at Bom Sucesso.  V. Schnoll phot– GG V

During GG V, we were saddened to learn that the various projects that have supported Bom Sucesso have been exhausted and except for a few guides waiting for tourists, no one seems to be maintaining the botanical garden and the herbarium– they are rapidly falling into disrepair.

Andrew and Velma lunching at Bom Sucesso.  RCD phot–GG V

This is particularly tragic in that it is the National Herbarium, and I have always felt strongly that African countries should share in the biological discoveries made in their territories. Moreover it is frequently visited tourists attraction. Regrettably, there is no minimal, base-line government support to keep such entities going. My guess is that it would  take only two salaries to survive the lean periods between projects: one for a full-time gardener and one for the Herbarium Curator.

Down the mountain at about 800m and not far from the waterfalls of Sao Nicolau is the lovely home of my friend, Henrique Pinto da Costa.

Henrique Pinto da Costa viewing a poster.   V. Schnoll phot.– GG V

Henrique is the former Minister of Agriculture and one of our most valuable friends; I have learned much about the history and people of Sao Tome and Principe from him, and he has appeared in earlier blogs.

On our first GG V visit to Henrique’s he gave us a tour of his gardens which are extensive and impressive.

Henrique’s garden.  R. Ayres phot–GG IV

As we were walking through, Velma called my attention to a rather amazing-spider, among Henrique’s plants, and I recognized it as a Gasteracantha. This is a spider I am familiar with from my early days in East Africa.

Henrique’s spider. A. Stanbridge phot.– GG V

Gasteracantha is an orb weaver, although it does not look like one. They are solitary and weave a flat, disc-shaped web, but also have strange lateral spine-like projections from the body. On GG I, back in 2001, we had two arachnologists with us and made a large collection. This collection has yet to be analyzed but having been with both spider people, I could not remember ever collecting this genus on the islands.

Gasteracantha sanguinolenta? strange dorsal view.  A. Stanbridge phot — GG V.

We did not touch the spiders, but when we returned to our base in Sao Tome, I emailed Dr. Charles Griswold, my colleague, one of the world’s experts on spiders and the lead arachnologist on GGI. I informed him that I could not recall ever collecting members of this genus on our earlier trips to the islands, and should I collect some.

Dr. Charles Griswold at Lagoa Amelia. D. Lin phot — GG I

Charles response: Get ‘em!The parting shot of our 22 April blog is of my long-time friend and island field companion, Quintino Quade Cabral, collecting spiders in Henrique’s garden. We got a fine series of Gasteracantha and also some of a different, non-spiny species that appears to be somewhat colonial. The specimens are in our spider lab awaiting identification. A preliminary ID suggests they may be something called the Blood-red spiny spider, G. sanguinolenta. This has an enormous range so it well might be. On the other hand, a closer look at Sao Tome and Principe specimens frequently brings surprises.

More when our photographer, Andrew returns. My next Summer Systematics Intern, Elizabeth Miller, will be working on the genetics of Greef’s giant gecko, supposedly the same critter on both islands…. but time will tell.

The Parting shot:

Andrew Stanbridge at Monte Cafe, Sao Tome.   V. Schnoll phot–GG V

PARTNERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund (GG I), Hagey Research Venture Fund (GG II) of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) and Africa’s Eden for logistics, ground transportation and lodging (GG III-V), STeP UP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/, Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bonfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Barbero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, the continued support of Bastien Loloum and Mariana Carvalho of Zuntabawe and Faustino de Oliviera, Curator of the National Herbarium 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, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami, Hon. Richard C. Livermore, Prof. & Mrs. Evan C. Evans III, Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Taylor, and Mrs. Sheila Farr Nielsen for helping make these expeditions possible. Tax-deductable donations in support of this work can be made to “CAS-Gulf of Guinea Fund.”

GG V will be largely an educational mission to the islands, and there will be but three of us leaving in about two weeks time; that is, if we can get visas! At time of writing, the Embassy of São Tomé and Príncipe in Washington DC appears to be closed, and no one seems to know when it will open; assuming that it does and that things work out, we arrive in São Tomé on April 15^th.

During GG IV, I showed lots of islanders a powerpoint series of ideas for posters illustrating the islands’ unique biodiversity. Everyone seemed excited about the idea. What better way to inform the citizens of the uniqueness of their islands than through beautiful pictures?

Showing poster powerpoint to Carlos Pinhiero and Daniel Ramos, Director of Principe National park. Principe airport. T. Daniel phot, GG IV.

Below is a finished product; we now have 200 of them of two different sizes and with five different messages, and we hope to deliver them to all of the schools and offices on both islands.

“ONLY ON SAO TOME”

When I first put the powerpoint presentation together, I thought that if the islanders liked them, producing the posters would be easy. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it took an entire year. I need to thank all of the folks involved. The idea for the posters came out of the realization that we had two strengths nobody else had: (1) we were the only academic institution doing ongoing research on the islands (discovering new species, etc.); we had the latest information and we could identify what we were looking at and (2), we had hundreds of high quality images - not just typical tourist images of the gorgeous beaches and forests or the fantastic phonolite towers like Cão Grande, but pictures of most of the unique species of the islands from mosses, millipedes and marine critters to flowers, frogs, snakes and birds. Again, printing these in poster-sized collages seemed like a perfect way to inform the citizens of the uniqueness of their islands.

The majority of the images in the posters were taken by the two professional photographers who accompanied us.

Dong Lin (GG I, II) photographing the Principe puddlefrog, in Santo Antonio. RCD phot. GG I.

Dong Lin was Academy staff photographer for many years, and is now in private practice. He narrates his own remarkable photographic tour through North Korea on this website: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/flash_point/northkorea/

Wesley Eckerman (GG III) among giant begonias, Lagoa Amelia. phot. R Wenk- GG III.

Wes Eckerman is a professional photographer who lives in Santa Cruz California. Some of his beautiful imagery can be viewed on his website: http://www.weckerphoto.com/. We had no photographer on GG IV, but will be bringing another, Andrew Stanbridge, next month on GG V; his photographic website is at http://www.andrewstanbridge.com/.

Not all of our images were by taken by the pros; a number of them were by the scientists and grad students who have been expedition members, and herein was a problem I had not forseen– various images we most needed were of different resolutions, exposures, etc! So we could not just drag them into place and have them printed. Trying to figure this stuff out (I am not an artist) in the midst of pressing academic affairs nearly drove me to distraction. Enter Velma Schnoll and Jim Boyer.

Velma Schnoll, California Academy of Sciences.

Velma Schnoll is a very organized, very bright woman. She is the Academy’s Docent Coordinator and develops all of the tours that our Docents (volunteers) lead on our public floors. Velma loved the idea of our Gulf of Guinea work and literally took over organization of the poster project from me. And she soon found Jim Boyer.

Jim Boyer, California Academy of Sciences (all docents wear orange coats).

Jim Boyer, is one of Velma’s Academy docents and a retired graphic artist. Over several months the two of them organized the images and posters, making sure that we scientists proofed all of the identifications and ultimately came up with the final designs; without them, we would have no results.

I had decided early to have a minimum amount of writing on the posters (except for the main message at the top) in order to let the images speak for themselves. We even decided to exclude photographic credits, but it was clear that we needed to at least identify the organisms for those citizens who examined the posters closely. The scientists could provide the scientific and English names, but what about the local (Forro) or Portuguese names? For these we turned to island friends with whom we have been working for a long time and will continue to do so.

Some Folks of ABS

The Associação dos Biologos is an active group of both formally and informally trained citizens who are concerned with their islands’ biological heritage and anxious to learn as much as they can. The group is headed by Dra. Alzira Rodriques (upper left), who is also the President of the Polytechnical Institute of São Tomé, the only institution of higher learning on the islands. Other members include Victor Bonfim, Director of Conservation for the Ministry of the Environment (middle), Hugulay Maia (lower right), whom I introduced in the last blog, and Angus Gascoigne (upper right), one of the group’s founders. Angus has been among our most important advisors since the very beginning; he is an acknowledged expert on the land snails of the islands and is currently an instructor at the Polytechnic.

Zuntabawe people. Bastien Loloum and family (left) , Mariana Carvalho and family (right)

I first met Bastien Loloum at a biodiversity slide show I gave to a small group on São Tomé six years ago, and he has been a good friend and supporter of our research and educational efforts ever since. Bas is multilingual, married to Delicia Maquengo and is now General Manager of Zuntabawe, a local consulting firm specializing in ecotourism and environmental affairs. http://www.zuntabawe.net/. Mariana Carvalho (right), a PhD candidate from the University of Portugal, is Zuntabawe’s environmental advisor. Her doctoral research is on the endangered maroon pigeon, and she has already produced an enchanting biodiversity video for local schools. Both the Zuntabawe and ABS groups helped us with the vernacular names of critters, and we hope both will be involved in distribution of the posters after we arrive.

Once the poster designs were completed, the remaining issue was how to get them printed. Initial queries yielded estimates far out of our price range – bear in mind that GG III, IV and the up-coming GG V have all been funded through private donations, so financial resources are always a concern!

Christina Fidler, CAS library, with one of the large posters- we have 100 of this size, and 100 more of half this size.

Christina Fidler, Digital Project Manager in the Academy library suggested we contact Bayphoto, a large graphic operation in Santa Cruz, California that has worked with the Academy in the past, especially on library-related imagery.

The manager of the company, Larry Abitbol, graciously gave us a very large educational discount and as of last month, we now have 200 laminated posters to take over to the islands. I suspect the airlines weight charges will be substantial!

Once back on the islands our primary host will, as always, be STeP Up, … This NGO, based on São Tomé, focuses on education and training in agriculture, the environment, health, and income-generation; our interaction with STeP UP has not only opened up many, many avenues of communication for us, but we as scientists have been able to broaden the environmental scope and activities of the organization itself. http://www.stepup.st/.

Some of the STeP UP people: Faia (?), Ned, Danny. back row: Abade and Quintino

The funding for the posters originally came as a grant from the Goldman Fund of San Francisco to STeP UP; one of our tasks on GG V will be to work with STeP UP to find a similar, effective use for the funds remaining.

These particular island projects have taken on a special meaning to me personally, as has STeP UP; the opportunity to do something for a nation of people, no matter how small, is enormously attractive, and of course, the scientific discoveries we have made are exciting. But even though I had spent over three decades doing fieldwork in Africa, I probably would never have visited the islands in the first place had it not been for STeP UP. This NGO was founded and is run by exceptional people. Ned Seligman is a life-long friend; our families lived a few hundred meters apart in San Francisco, and it was at Ned’s insistence that I first visited in 2000, following a wildlife conference in Libreville. Although both of us had spent our careers in Africa, this was the first time we were on the continent in the same place at the same time. Ned introduced me to the head of ECOFAC and to officials in the Ministry of the Environment, and the next year, 2001, GG I took place.

Roberta dos Santos of STeP UP.

Roberta dos Santos, Ned’s counterpart, is from a venerable Sao Tomean family and knows virtually everyone on the islands. She spent three years in college in Buffalo, New York studying English (she first arrived in Buffalo in the dead of winter—she had never seen snow and probably had never been even chilly!!) and then taught for 20 years in the islands’ only high school. When Ned came to the islands as Director of the US Peace Corps, Roberta served as Assistant Director; later when Ned decided to return from directing the PC in Guinea-Bissau, they founded STeP UP. Roberta dos Santos was absolutely invaluable in introducing our own CAS Roberta Ayers (see earlier blogs) to the educational people and system on the island during GG IV, and she will be vital in getting the posters to the schools and other appropriate places during GG V. We also look forward to seeing another of the STeP UP crowd, Quintino Quade, an English teacher and our companion on so many bush adventures, from netting fish to dodging cobras.

So, leve leve! If things work out, the next blog will be from the islands!

The Parting Shot.

A deepwater port at Neves?  What will happen to Rosema?

PARTNERS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the G. Lindsay Field Research Fund (GG I), Hagey Research Venture Fund (GG II) of the California Academy of Sciences, the Société de Conservation et Développement (SCD) and Africa’s Eden for logistics, ground transportation and lodging (GG III-V), STePUP of Sao Tome http://www.stepup.st/., Arlindo de Ceita Carvalho, Director General, and Victor Bonfim, Salvador Sousa Pontes and Danilo Barbero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, the continued support of Bastien Loloumb of Zuntabawe 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, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami, Hon. Richard C. Livermore, Prof. & Mrs. Evan C. Evans III, Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Taylor, and Mrs. Sheila Farr Nielsen for helping make these expeditions possible. Tax-deductable donations in support of this work can be made to “CAS-Gulf of Guinea Fund.”

I have been informed by a colleague that my last blog was a tad on the “heavy” side; I cannot apologize for this as sometimes science is difficult to describe in an informal blog, but this blog will be slightly different.

First celebration. We have just learned that Island Biodiversity Race has been ranked #3 Best Biodiversity Blog by The Pimm Group of Duke University (US).

Here is the link: http://thepimmgroup.org/919/best-biodiversity-blogs/

Needless to say, it is wonderfully gratifying to learn that people have been reading this, and thus that it is worth the effort. But it is way more important that the people of São Tomé and Príncipe and their unique islands are beginning to get some attention, especially with development looming.

In earlier blogs I have mentioned our poster project. The posters are meant to do the same thing as the blog but will be much more accessible to the Sao Tomeans — not too many fishermen carry laptops in their dugouts! Below is a finished poster (lacking one logo) and when printed and laminated, we intend to post them in every school and public building that will have them as a visual message that the islands are unique. Each individual image is an endemic species, and there are 5 different iterations of two sizes with different species. The one below will be 20 X 24”, others will be nearly twice as large. We are very close to printing.

THERE ARE NO OTHER ISLANDS LIKE OURS!!

You will note that there are no fish in the above poster, nor will there be any in the first round of posters. While we have a number of new species, none has been officially described as yet.  However, luckily the Academy was just visited by Dr. Luiz Rocha of the University of Texas. Luiz was on a 2006 marine expedition that led to a publication on the coastal fishes of São Tomé and Príncipe. Another author on that same paper was our own Dr. Tomio Iwamoto who was a participant in both GG I and GG II and whose island work has been featured on this blog many times. Just to prove there are gorgeous endemic fishes  found only in the islands, here are two, courtesy of Dr. Rocha.

Thalassoma newtoni, an endemic wrasse. (Rocha)

Clepticus africanus, another endemic wrasse. (Rocha)

Second celebration. I introduced myself once at the beginning of this blog back in 2008; I won’t again beyond suggesting you see the first and second blog and mentioning that I and many of our Gulf of Guinea expedition scientists and grad students are part of a very old scientific organization. Yesterday, our Department of Herpetology (my home) just cataloged our 300,000^th specimen. This is a very BIG deal, and our reptile and amphibian collection (including all of our São Tomé and Príncipe material) is the 6^th largest collection in the world.

(l-r: me, Jens Vindum, Sr. Collections Mgr., and Lauren Scheinberg, Research Assistant. – phot. V. Schnoll

Updates:  I still have no final word on our millepedes, currently being studied at the Royal Central African Museum by a colleague, but the last hint was that we have three species (one new), all of one genus, Globanus. And just before he left for southern Chile, Jim Shevock (GG IV) showed me a manuscript on a host of new records and new species of bryophytes from São Tomé and Príncipe.  He is submitting the paper for publication with his European colleagues.

Finally, we got news from the islands a few weeks ago of the death of our friend, Abade. Abade was Ned Seligman’s cook and great character. I first met him 12 years ago when I went alone to the islands to begin organizing the future expeditions with the help of STeP UP, Ned’s NGO. Abade had a sort of secret, enigmatic, vaguely evil smile that somehow reminded me of the way a sorceror should look.  He had a wonderful sense of humor and I jam convinced he understood English perfectly well… he just wouldn’t speak it to me! Just one Abade story among many: during GG I, we were desperate to find one of the endemic frog species, Newton’s rocket frog (below).

Newton’s rocket frog, Ptychadena newtoni – endemic to Sao Tome

We were assured they were once common downtown but we had been  unsuccessful so far. At dinner one night at Ned’s, Abade (through Ned) decided he would show us these frogs, and we all marched off into the night through a grassy field near the airport. As we were searching by flashlight, we suddenly heard the thunder of many running boots coming down metal stairs in two large building off in the gloom.  Abade had led us onto the army base and the troops had obviously seen our lights in the field! Believe me, if there is one place anywhere in Africa you do not ever want to be , it is on an military base! We all ran like a flock of chickens with Abade in the lead, of course.  We remained frogless for a couple of  weeks until we figured out how to find us.  All of us of all of the GG teams will miss  him.

More anon.

The parting shot:

Abade, in Ned’s kitchen.   Ciao, Amigo!  RCD phot – GG IV.

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) and Africa’s Eden 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 Barbero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, the continued support of Bastien Loloum of Zuntabawe and Faustino Oliviera, Curator of the Herbarium 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, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami, Hon. Richard C. Livermore, Prof. & Mrs. Evan C. Evans III, Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Taylor and Velma and Michael Schnoll for helping make these expeditions possible. Our expeditions can be supported by donations to “California Academy of Sciences Gulf of Guinea Fund”.

This month I had hoped to describe part of our island educational project but things have been too busy here at the Academy; our Fall calendars are always full as it is the beginning of the academic year in the US. We have also hit some snags on our planned São Tomé- Príncipe biodiversity posters. We have the funding (thanks to donors to STeP UP) and the imagery from our expeditions; in fact we have everything except a designer. In the March blog, I included two of the mockups which were among those we took to the islands; everyone we showed them to liked them very much. It turns out though, that producing 200 high resolution posters of large size is not an easy undertaking, but we are working on it. Below is one of my favorites:

“Only In Sao Tome!!”  D. Lin phot – GGI

There is much to relate on many fronts including news of the millipedes which are currently with an expert in Belgium, the identity of the Príncipe shrew, Lisette’s work on cobra jita, etc., all which I must write about later.

If you follow this account, you have already met Jim Shevock, one of the foremost bryophyte workers anywhere, and you will recall that during GG IV, he made a huge collection of liverworts, hornworts and mosses.

[Jim Shevock with Afrocarpus mannii, Morro Provaz. T. Daniel phot – GG IV

Jim’s island collection represents an enormous amount of work and will take a long time to fully analyze, but here is a progress report from him:

“Of the 700 bryophyte collections made during GGIV, nearly 275 of them represent liverwort and hornwort specimens. The specimens obtained from these two taxonomic groups have now been named to species by two world experts residing in Dresden and Budapest who specialize in African liverworts. The results are very impressive. Prior to GGIV, the published liverwort and hornwort checklist contained 85 species for São Tomé and 33 species for Príncipe (20 species are shared between the two islands). We have now added 26 liverworts as “new” for São Tomé and 19 species as “new” for Príncipe.

Orthostichella sp. (hanging).  Lagoa Amelia. J. Shevock phot – GG IV.

The next phase is to complete the identification process for the mosses collected during GGIV. We anticipate the data on the mosses will be similarly impressive. The currently published moss checklist for São Tomé contains 76 species and only 14 mosses are reported in the literature for Príncipe. We anticipate the moss species list to expand markedly. We already have a moss family to report as new not only to the Gulf of Guinea but to West Africa (the Symphyodontaceae); other African records are known only from Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar and Reunion Id. We have at least one species of moss new to science , and there will probably be more. All of the material obtained within the moss families Fissidentaceae and Neckeraceae are now identified to species, and in both cases, new taxa are documented for the country and from both islands. Some species will also be reported for the first time as occurring within West Africa. Based on the data obtained so far, the actual bryoflora of São Tomé and Príncipe is much richer than initially projected. Conducting these expeditions is but the first step toward the discovery of the biota of São Tomé and Príncipe.

Moss Fissidens ovatus and Begonia annobonensis, SW Príncipe. RCD phot – GG IV.

I posted a similar photo in the March blog when we thought the tiny flowering plant above might be an undescribed species of Begonia; we subsequently learned that this species is already known to science, but it is still possible that this southwestern Príncipe population may represent the smallest Begonia plant in the world. And, now we know that the rest of the rock is covered with the widespread tropical moss species, Fissidens ovatus.

The parting shot:

Santa Catarina buddies. 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) and Africa’s Eden 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 Barbero of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe for permission to export specimens for study, the continued support of Bastien Loloum of Zuntabawe and Faustino Oliviera, Curator of the Herbarium 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, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Murakami, Hon. Richard C. Livermore, Prof. & Mrs. Evan C. Evans III, Mr. and Mrs. Robert M. Taylor and Velma and Michael Schnoll for helping make these expeditions possible. Our expeditions can be supported by donations to “California Academy of Sciences Gulf of Guinea Fund”.