My question for the day: what do you do when you can’t get in to the field to collect data…?

… you wait for the data to come to you.

Shimoni’s coastal forests fall under one of 25 initially recognised Global Biodiversity Hotspots, as part of the Northern Zanzibar-Inhambane coastal forest mosaic. Whilst our research focuses primarily on the charismatic Angolan Black and White (or Pied) Colobus we also aim to collect data on the diversity of both plant and animal species. And after nearly four years of collecting amphibian specimens in Tanzania, frogs have become a particular favourite of mine, for their remarkable range of shapes, sizes, colours and life histories designed to fill an equally remarkable array of ecological niches.

Not surprisingly, the wet season represents the best time of year for finding frogs, when these amphibious animals are at their most active, which our coastal forest research programme is missing out on this year. So I was very excited when the following hopped across my office floor a few evenings ago…

The size, webbed feet, expanded tips of the digits and horizontal oval pupils mark it out as a Hyperolius species, or one of the reed frogs; small climbing frogs with an incredible range of striking colour patterns. Unfortunately the taxonomy is very confusing for this group with scientists still trying to work out relationships between species and sub-species, but it would appear to be a different species to the Hyperolius we had recorded previously, pictured below:

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Since August of this year GVI has been supporting Kenya Wildlife Service and the Colobus Trust to carry out the first national census of the Angolan Black and White Colobus since 2001. Having already completed the census in Shimoni’s forests, we have spent the last few weeks at Gonja Forest Reserve, between the border posts of Kenya and Tanzania. Our Terrestrial Officer, Emma, returned today after finishing off the last of the transects with our team of expedition members. For me playing a key role in the census has been one of the most valuable contributions we have made to the conservation of this amazing animal.  Emma, our Terrestrial Science Officer, tells us the news from Gonja…

Above: The research team for Gonja Forest Reserve, Emma is second from the right in the top row

“After two weeks and twenty two transects, Gonja provided us with just 13 Colobus sightings from 5 troops, two of which were just solitary males. In 2001,  the census recorded 24 colobus, which indicates a worrying decline in the population for an area of forest that is under formal protection.

Above: The red legged running frog, Kassina maculata, a wonderful find in Gonja

But there were some excicitng findings too… we found two new species of frogs that we haven’t recorded before one of which was the beautiful Kassina maculata, or red legged running frog, the second species in this genus that we have found.

We also had a visit from a shrew, a Crocidura spp, which was very cute! Unfortunately with over 100 species described that all look very similar, we are unable to identiy which species it is without taking a specimen for identification by experts. Finally our time crawling through Gonja forest also gave us some smaller adventures… the bee nests and army ant attacks were not the fondest of memories but we saw some very very cool spiders!”

Above: The shrew we found, Crocidura sp 

Above: One of the spiders that make the coastal forests such an exicting place of discovery

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