Tools of the trade & some rare finds

Black Rock

Button's Skink, only occurs on these rocks at Black Rock

Python Chiton, a rare and endangered find. Only occurs in this area, Tanzania & Somalia. 

Feather Star

Hermit Crab

Struggling to catch fish

Sickle bush flower, traditionally used to help ear pain.

Vincent climbing a tree

Brigitte sets traps…..these traps are a version of the traditional Berlese extractor. The containers are filled with soil taken from litter collected at random around the camp area. The idea is that the contents dries out and the soil organisms tend to go down to find more moisture. This process takes up to a week and these organisms will end up in a container at the bottom of the funnel.
Brigitte expects to find spring tails at the end of the week – these specimens are a kind of an insect that range in size from 1mm to 1cm and is called collembola and will be bar codes to form part of the iBol project.

Brigitte's ant traps

At the “lab” Barnabas is continuously photographing the samples collected so far. The samples are under a lens with special maximum light features and a ruler to indicate the size of the specimen. A voucher number is included in the photograph to avoid later mistakes and these data is captured on a software programme and will be uploaded on the Web as soon as identification is made. Smaller in vertebrae like insects and spiders are being photographed and range from 5 to 10mm in size. 210 species has been captured in this way up to today.

Barnabas processing samples

Vincent was so desperate to find a sample that he made use of the local community to help him find ticks. A few of the fishermen and researchers ended up cleaning 2 local dogs and found 1 dog with 25 ticks that he willingly donated 5 different species were found on that dog.

This was not enough for the dedicated scientist and a few cattle were herded into a pen. The big bull was cornered and immobilized with some ropes. The poor creature was terrified and lost his footing. This was the moment that Vincent was waiting for the best sample was located at the testicles of the bull. Light was failing so with the help of his head light Vincent extracted the wanted specimen.
The locals were very interested in the project and feedback will be given to them about the specific diseases caused by these parasites.

Doctor attending to his first patient

…and then the help of doctor Jacques was needed when Ntshembo got his finger in the door of the Fortuner.