LSU in Equatorial Guinea

I must confess that if you had me asked me in July of 2023 to point to Equatorial Guinea on a  map, I wouldn’t have been able to do it – I probably wouldn’t have even guessed the right continent. By January 2024 I was headed to West Central Africa with my student Sheila Rodríguez Machado along with LSU MNS Bird Curator Nick Mason. Nick was joined by Harvard postdoc– Jonathan Schmitt (son of Museum Associates Donna and Greg Schmitt) to work on birds. Sheila and I – and later my collections manager Dave Boyd (who joined for the mainland part of the trip just before I left), were there to work on fishes. We were all there as part of a five-week effort led by Conservation International and the Bioko Biodiversity Protection Program to study the plants and animals of this poorly studied country. Besides the LSU team there were experts from all over the world working with locals to do assessments of over a dozen taxonomic groups.

Equatorial Guinea (EG) is in West Central Africa, it is one of the smallest countries on Earth and also one of the least visited. It is also described as a ‘hot spot within a hot spot’ in terms of its biodiversity and has one of the highest primate concentrations as part of the Congo Basin. Broken up into the mainland, which is nested between Cameroon to the north and Gabon to the south, and the island of Bioko about 50 miles off the coast (closer to Cameroon than mainland EG). Bioko houses the country’s main airport, population centers, and capital, Malabo. Equatorial Guinea is also the only nation in Africa whose official language is Spanish. It was once named Fernando Po and its history of colonization is as fascinating as it is distressing – as is the case for much of what was once cruelly and wickedly called, “The Dark Continent.” As I traveled, I carried with me a copy of Sir Richard Burton’s ‘Wanderings in West Africa’ – which only covered the time ol’ “Riffian Dick” was in Fernando Po over the last couple of pages, but it has some great lines from that Victorian explorer like, “I passed the long length of a single day and night in Madeira and consequently consider myself highly fitted to write a somewhat lengthy account of it. Despise not gentle reader first impressions.” He ended his long (and frequently racist, I’m sad to say) book with these words: “So closed my voyage outward bond. Arriving in these outer places in the very abomination of desolation. I drop for a time my pen, in the distant memory of our having felt uncommonly suicidal through that first night on Fernando Po.” Although I never felt as desolate as poor Burton, after 20 days of eating little more than rice and lentils (and sometimes just burnt rice), and pooping in communal pits with 30 others, I sometimes thought to myself, “Maybe going after freshwater fishes at high elevation on a volcanic island in the dry season wasn’t the best idea.”

Bioko also deserves its name “Ilé Formoso” (as named by Portuguese explorer Fernão do Pó), and as far as stunning nearly untouched scenery goes - I’ve been to few places more beautiful. We spent our first days at camp just off the beach on the eastern point of the island on Moraka Playa; it had large rocks on its shore, islands themselves at high tide, which we could climb and rest upon until the crashing tide swallowed up their bases and the sea reclaimed them. We saw many stunning sunsets from these boulders. Our camp was set within the forest which had little more than a 15’ band of fist-sized rocks as the transition between beach and forest. Once you’ve passed those rocks you were in the thicket of tropical jungle and only the sound of the waves would remind you that you were still near the Gulf of Guinea. The sounds of monkeys, birds, insects, and tree hyraxes (my favorite sound amongst the clatter and one of the most haunting sounds I’ve ever heard) filled the air between sounds of the ocean crashing, sometimes thunderously, against the shore. It was paradise and were it anywhere else in the world it would be filled with tourists, sunbathers, vendors hawking their wares, and the general bustle of the hoi polloi. Instead, we had paradise to ourselves.    

What kept people away from these shores was the political history of the island, a brutal dictatorship preceded the current one which is better known for being greedy with the country’s vast oil riches than for its violence. Still, we were very happy to be invited by positive forces in the government interested in the development of an eco-tourism trade and a multiuse forest where locals and foreigners could enjoy the biodiversity. We were there to help document that diversity with the goal of one day aiding the creation of a national park on the island.

It was amazing to see so many different kinds of biologists working on their study organisms in the field at the same time. I’ve been a part of these large biodiversity survey groups before, where we all benefit from the shared infrastructure (a large camp with a cook and porters) but we also learn from each other and share a love of nature, collections, and conservation. There were the botanists from the local university (Universidad Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial) going out to collect plants deep into the forest: a forest in one of the wettest places on Earth, but in the dry season without flowers (it was truly remarkable to see such a green but flowerless jungle). There was the dung beetle biologist who used his own excrement to set cute little pit traps that looked like little fairy-houses made of leaves and sticks (but with a plastic cup as a trap door for getting specimens). There were the mammologists setting up tall canopies of mist nets for bats and large plastic blocking sheets and traps to catch the rodents on the ground (we had to be reminded that these were not the pit toilets that were dug for us elsewhere). And then there were ‘the bird people’ with their large prep tent bigger than any of our sleeping quarters (one or two-person tents) who seemed to be working 24 hours a day, first getting up early with the birds then preparing them for eternity. And of course, the ichthyologists: Sheila and I would wake up at a reasonable hour, have breakfast and head out to the various sites which were sometimes freshwater or coastal (marine) streams. Our work included snorkeling, seining, cast-netting, dip-netting and the like. We would repeat our morning efforts late in the afternoon, often in the same sites, because the ichthyofauna diversity would turn over and be very different. The freshwater streams flowing from higher elevation were wonderful and we even had an outlet to one of these very close to the campsite. This pool near camp was also where we all bathed and where dishes were washed: “fishes love dishes and soap” is something I’ve said from experience at other places and sure enough this natural pool near camp had the highest concentration of fish we saw anywhere (probably due to the increased nutrients and food scraps we brought with us). At low tide these spots were dominated by gobies (Gobiidae – a family with over 2000 species) and at night the sleepers (Eleotridae) and marine species would slide in and replace them with the higher tide. As you went higher in elevation (as we would, going up to 1000 meters and above to the caldera of one of the extinct volcanos that created the island), there were fewer and fewer fish and really only the climbing gobies (Sicydium) could make it (about 700 meters was there elevational limit). These fish used suction disks from their fused pectoral fins to cling to the rocks on the cold fast-flowing streams – that suction also made them very hard to catch even with coordinated efforts. Besides, Sheila and myself, there were generally one or two locals with us also learning and helping to catch, and prep the specimens. In Malabo, “Equipo de Peces” included two local post graduates: Elpidio Buelecope Sepa and Domingo Nseme Micha Avomo. It was great to see them learn about their local fish fauna which included pipefish (seahorse relatives), colorful killifish, and many kinds of gobiods. In some of the marine sites we saw eels and surgeonfish and of course more gobies. Our favorite species of Sicydium appeared to have interesting sexual dimorphism and variation. Large bright blue colored males would sit in conspicuous sunny areas presumably to show off to females, while less blue, sometimes black and white males (we think of the same species) would occupy other parts of the rocks. Females, as they are in many dimorphic species, were inconspicuous and often hidden away. Because of their ability to stick to the rocks, which helps them climb up waterfalls (of which we saw many) and fight against the flow of water – they were very hard to catch and examine. We look forward to studying the genetics of these samples.

As noted earlier, we moved up from our cozy sea-level camp to higher elevation, a six-hour march that left many of us absolutely spent. I’ve never done a walk going steeply uphill almost the entire time and over such a long stretch of time. At the same time, I felt spoiled because our young and healthy porters were carrying the majority of the gear, and they were doing it twice as fast, some going back and forth in double our time. In the end we all made it but us fish folks did wonder why we left the wonderful marine streams below: there were very few fish as we entered higher elevation, but we also expected that. However, as the saying goes, “you never know.” I had joked that if we were going to find an isolated population of freshwater coelacanth (the famous “living fossil” fish), this was the spot (many coelacanth fossils are rather small and from freshwaters, as opposed to the giant marine living forms of today). As the food rations shrank and became blander and blander, I did offer to catch the “crawfish” which turned out to be a prawn species (Macrobrachium), and we had our first nice meal in days when our cook Jordi pulled out some garlic and boiled our “crawfish” Louisiana style. These high-elevation prawns were amazingly abundant at night (in the thousands) and the fifty or so we all ate were delicious. I joked that they we were eating a new species, but that is unlikely to be the case. We did see a few high elevation crabs that we probably should have a taxonomist look at in the future (we lacked a carcinologist, one of the few taxonomic groups not represented among the biologists on this trip). Another fine meal was prepared by mammologist, Dr. Iroro Tanshi who had the botanists gather some nice plants and she prepared a beautiful Nigerian dish – Akara, with crushed chickpeas and onions. It was wonderful, even more so after another long day of hiking.

   At nights the groups of taxonomists would all reconvene under the camp dining area (a tarp roofed open space with three long tables the porters constructed from macheted wood), and we would talk about our day or the state of taxonomy and natural history in various places – from Eswatini to the Netherlands. The state of natural history research is not great in many places, but I liked the idea that we were taking the first steps in growing some budding naturalists among the people we worked with in Equatorial Guinea, along with the seasoned professionals who were already working and training people there. One thing I concluded was that the taxonomic expertise usually tucked away in Western museums and institutions was moving to where the biodiversity is – namely the Global South – and that’s a good thing.

As for numbers, after David Boyd joined the trip for the mainland portion (the last two weeks of the trip): there were 25 successful sampling events (33 attempted sites, eight mostly high elevation sites lacked fishes): 17 on Bioko and eight on mainland EG. There were 632 specimens collected from 47 fish species (representing 34 genera and 24 families). Notably of the 47 species, 26 were only collected in Bioko and 21 on the continent, with no overlap in species (i.e., no species were found in both the island and mainland). We collected eight species of gobies and sleepers (Gobiiformes) on Bioko; while the mainland had more minnow (Cypriniformes) and catfish species. We did not observe any introduced species, nor were there any endemics (of which there is only one reported from this tiny country). There were about 24 species observed previously on Bioko that we did not see and we collected potentially two new species to science.

The fishes we collected are now back at the LSU MNS, and I thank those locals that helped us obtain permits, especially the extraordinary botanist, Maximiliano Fero. I hope this survey can help Conservation International and its partners convince the government of Equatorial Guinea to create that national park and invest in its incredible biodiversity.