The Atlantic Forest has bravely resisted through centuries of human exploitation. The area now covered by the Elguero farm was once a center for coal extraction and today is supported by the production of resin from the pine trees that border the forest. Before the pine trees prevailed, the plum trees ruled the business, attracting and agglomerating several individuals of the local tapir population. Some small plantations still exist and continue to attract these animals, rarely seen in nature. They now symbolize the beginning of an era of ecotourism and wildlife contemplation. Betting on this endeavor, I joined forces with the Manacá Institute team in an attempt to add amphibians and reptiles to the research and ecotourism repertoires.
Herp Trips (my company) is the first to officially provide people with the joys of amphibians and reptiles observation in Brazil. After graduating in Ecological sciences, a few years of research in the field put me in company with virtually every kind of person. It made me realize that, as much different those people were from me, their reaction wasn’t. There was always a great satisfaction, mostly related to the excitement of discovery. That was the main objective when I opened my company, create opportunities for laypeople who are willing to have a “natural history experience”.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 has slowed down the business and, as expected, tourism hasn’t engaged. I have taken advantage of this adversity to let mature my knowledge regarding the biodiversity of my new workplace, the Elguero farm. I started a new research project approaching the ecology of small vertebrates inhabiting the reserve encompassed by the farm, the Private Natural Heritage Reserve Trápaga.
Trápaga harbors a rich vertebrates’ community and until now I have already found more than 50 species, among amphibians, reptiles, rodents, and marsupials. I wonder how these species are distributed within Trápaga vegetation gradient. I have also been addressing other questions (e.g., diet composition, home range, survivorship) to the populations of particular species, such as the quite charismatic White-faced Horned Frog (Proceratophrys boiei) and the Ihering’s Fathead Lizard (Enyalius iheringii).
My research has been hugely time-consuming. As soon as I had the project ready, I moved to my study area and kept my traps working 20 days a month. Pitfall traps allowed me to acquaint myself with a group that, until recently, was completely odd for me, the small mammals. Rodents and opossums are astonishingly diverse in the Atlantic Forest. Dealing with such diversity has been challenging but incredibly rewarding. Although certain species are widely distributed and often observed within urban centers, like the White-eared Opossum (Didelphis albiventris), others, like the Southeastern Four-eyed Opossum (Philander frenatus) are rarely seen if you aren’t on the right track or if you don’t spend enough time in the field. For this part of the project, I have got a lot of help from Professor Ana Paula Carmignotto, zoologist from Universidade Federal de São Carlos.
In the same way, finding snakes usually asks for dozens of hours of active search, preferably at night. Unfortunately, so much time spent checking the traps was more exhaustive than expected, so I got forced to save energy some nights. Even though they were few, I had beautiful encounters with these mysterious creatures. The first to fall into my traps was a Painted Coral Snake (Micrurus corallinus) which beautifully presented me with its tongue dart in one of my pictures. I love to add this detail in snakes’ photographs because I think it brings personality and some of their ecological features to the scene.
In the first field course promoted by my company, a student found a newborn Jararaca (Bothrops jararaca) coiled on a fern about two meters high. I really can’t say what satisfied me the most if it was my usual excitement or to see the students’ excitement. They immediately took their cameras o ! and started asking themselves about the context which led that individual to forage on that site. As said before, this was the main reason for my company’s foundation.
A different but equally nice event happened when a friend of mine, Arthur, came to Trápaga for helping me in my research. Arthur is the most snake-fascinated person I have ever known. Unfortunately, he was very busy working on consulting reports in the office and wasn’t able to keep up with me every day in the field. One day he commented to me: “I dreamed that I have seen you catching a Two-headed Sipo (Chironius bicarinatus)”. Two days later, I indeed grabbed one. I was heading back to the farm quarters, having done some repairs to one of my pitfall-trap lines, when an adult female appeared moving about 20 meters in front of me. It was great to see his face when I put the subject of his dream on the same table he exhaustively worked on that boring report.
Even though snakes are probably the sexiest among herps, amphibians can be as just interesting as them, with one huge advantage, they are everywhere. My best encounters with frogs happened in moments of profound exhaustion as if they had happened just to bring my spirits back. Coming back to the accommodations of Trápaga after a long, hard, and extremely hot day I see this couple of Bahia Forest Frog (Macrogenioglottus alipioi) in amplexus in the transition between the reserve and the pine tree forest. Although this is a widely distributed species (occurring since the southeastern to northeastern Brazil), it seems to be sensitive to habitat disturbance and it is rarely observed. Highly coveted among herpetologists, the species has been reported only in preserved remnants of the Atlantic Forest after heavy rains. I took this opportunity to put in practice the focus stacking technique and expand the depth of the field to include both individuals, male and female, completely sharp.
A similar situation occurred after one of my nocturnal searches. That wasn’t one of my best nights and the combination of the lack of success and a tiresome two-hour hike knocked me. As soon as I walked out the track, I found a couple of Atlantic Forest Dwarf Frogs (Physalaemus olfersii), spawning in a pond. The water was muddy, but it was possible to see their reflex anyway. Another feature that made my night, was the fact that I was able to frame the male tapping his legs to transform the gelatinous substance expelled by the female into a kind of “egg whites”. It is also possible to see a few of the hundreds of eggs that will remain in that spawn until becoming tadpoles. So much natural history in a single image.
In addition to all these magnificent vertebrates, I intend to add arthropods to my repertoire next year. That may be useful to understand the distribution of their predators (especially marsupials and lizards). However, I am not just interested in understanding their role as prey within the ecosystem. I also want to address the same questions that I had on vertebrates. For instance, I have already noticed that some species are practically omnipresent. That is the case of wandering spiders of the genus Ctenus. On the other hand, Tarantulas (family Theraphosidae) are much more common in two specific sites, where the vegetation is more conserved. I am very anxious to see if such speculations are really true after the collection and identification of the specimens by researcher Thiago Novato.
What a wonderful task it has been to work in the largest remnant of the Atlantic Forest. Out of being in touch with a surprisingly rich community, I have the opportunity to document their life histories through photography and science. New adventures and exciting scientific outcomes are to come.
Acknowledgements
I am immensely grateful to Felipe Gobbi Grazziotin and the São Paulo Research Foundation (Project Escalas da Biodiversidade, grant #) for funding my research; Mariana Landis, Maria Virtudes Medina, and José Ignácio Palácios Barrasus as well as Manacá Institute and Elguero Farm for providing accommodation and all the support; Ana Paula Carmignotto, Arthur Diesel Abegg, Felipe Osmari Cerezer, Gabriel Paganini Faggioni, Rebeca Stella Khouri, Renato Christensen Nali, Thiago Ferreira Rodrigues, and Thiago da Silva Novato for their contribution on the project; Guilherme Oliveira, Hiago Ermenegildo, Julia Mayumi, Lucas Neves, and Rafael Carlos Benetti Paredero for helping in fieldwork.
This research was supported by grant # 2016/50127-5.
