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Hawai’i is easily one of the most isolated places on earth, home to over ten thousand species found nowhere else in the world; each arriving as a castaway through the agency of wind and sea thousands of years before human habitation. Without the threat of predation or competition, Hawaii’s native plants and animals developed remarkable […]
Lost and Found
Hunting for a Harlequin – rediscovering the Jambato harlequin frog
The Jambato harlequin frog was not always a rarity. Many villagers from the mountains of northern Ecuador remember the days when the little frog was a common sight: dwelling in damp corners of their houses, being prodded by curious children, and not infrequently being ground up for medicine. Amphibian of the Andes The Jambato harlequin […]
The Cuban Solenodon: Is it a goat; is it a bird… no it’s a dinosaur rat!
If I told you that I knew an animal that smelled like a goat, chirped like a bird, kills with its saliva and runs on its tip-toes, you wouldn’t believe me- right? So there’s not a lot of point in my writing this, given that you believe my subject to be completely imaginary. Okay, now […]
The tale of the Night Parrot: An epic of rediscovery against the odds
Parrots are birds. Birds fly. So parrots fly. Simple, right? Well, not exactly.
Frogs, sex and la(r)va
The Quito rocket frog (Hyloxalus jacobuspetersi) disappeared before it even got a name. It was first described for science in 1991, but it wasn’t spotted after 1989, with some scientists claiming that no one had laid eyes on them since the 1960’s. Story goes that it was once widespread across the Ecuadorian Andes, jumping from stream […]
From saddle cover to media sensation: the story of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey
During his famous 5 year-long expedition to Latin America (1799-1804), Alexander von Humboldt collected, together with his naturalist partner, Aimé Bonpland, around 60,000 plant specimens and an unknown number of animal specimens that we can safely assume to be in the thousands. Some of these specimens were being shown and described to the scientific world […]
Un-masking the true identity of the Tasman Booby
Remote volcanic islands, ancient bones, scientists and a species brought back from the dead. It might sound like a Jurassic Park rip-off but this is the story of how a diverse team of researchers un-covered the fate of the Tasman Booby. Unearthing history On Lord Howe Island, the husk of an old volcano 1600km east […]
Now you see it, now you don’t: the troubled tale of the estuarine pipefish
The estuarine pipefish, has been playing a frightening game of hide-and-seek for decades. Not only was this pipefish thought to be extinct once, it was feared to have disappeared from the world a second time… only to be discovered yet again by scientists. You may wonder, just as we did, why this species has been […]
Finding inspiration in rediscovery
I love what I do. I’ve been a naturalist since childhood, and I was lucky enough to grow up in the wilds of west Dorset where the woodlands, coastlines and hills gave me everything I needed to explore my fascination with wildlife and the natural world. In school, the only subject which interested me was […]
On the path of the Spreadwing
We were threading on a narrow foot path, running across a rainforest leading to the Adam’s Peak mountain, the most sacred mountain in Sri Lanka and the fourth highest in the country. Our team of five naturalists was ascending the mountain slowly as we were frequently held by interesting animals, beautiful sceneries of forests, mountains […]