The only way to travel. Close quarters when there’s a big bag and two adult guys riding the bike!

Following my week-long stay at Ngel Nyaki, I headed to a field station deep within Gashaka-Gumti National Park in nearby Adamawa State. Getting there was half the fun! After about an hour taxi ride from Yelwa to Serti, I hired a motorcycle that drove me to Gashaka (about an hour ride). In Gashaka, I met up with some British and American students working with the Gashaka Primate Project (GPP). We then walked about two hours to the GPP field station at Kwano; luckily, I was able to get a motorcycle ride all the way back to Serti from Kwano on my return.

Most of the fieldwork conducted at the GPP field station at Kwano focuses on primate behavior. Specifically, much of this work focuses on either baboons or chimpanzees. The Kwano field station is directed by Dr. Volker Sommer, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at University College London. He and his team have made the Kwano field station a fantastic resource for fieldwork. While I was at Kwano, there was a small team of students conducting separate graduate research projects on baboons. For someone that spends most of his time looking in leaves, streams, and puddles, it was a fun experience watching real behavioral primatologists “in action” as they followed one or several baboons from early in the morning to late in the afternoon—sometimes from before 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.!

The field station of the Gashaka Primate Project in Gashaka village within Gashaka-Gumti National Park.

I really had no idea which species I might find at Kwano. The only other survey of reptiles and amphibians in Gashaka-Gumti National Park was conducted in high elevation forest far from Kwano. My main interest in Kwano comes from the fact that it sits in the middle of woodlands and forests that are far away from other large patches of lowland forest in Cameroon. My guess was that I would find species similar to those that I’ve found previously in the lowland forests of Cameroon. But I didn’t know whether I would find only a small component of this fauna or whether it would be dominated by species that are more typical of savannas or woodlands. In fact, I found a combination, but, importantly, I did find some species that are generally considered “real” lowland forest species. For two species, Cardioglossa leucomystax and Phrynobatrachus cornutus, the records in Gashaka-Gumti extend the known ranges some 60 to 70 miles from neighboring Cameroon into this region of eastern Nigeria. It is not a huge surprise that these were there, but it’s important to realize that these may indicate that many other lowland forest species might also occur in Gashaka-Gumti National Park. This emphasizes that this park, and the Kwano field station, are important resources for future fieldwork on lowland forest frogs in this part of Africa.

One important find was a population of Petropedetes frogs in the stream just near the field station. We don’t know much about the biology of the species in this genus and some of these species have really unusual characteristics. For instance, in the species at Kwano, which is probably Petropedetes parkeri, males have the following suite of odd characteristics: (1) out of each tympanum (the externally visible part of their ear, which looks like a large circle just behind the eye) sticks a funny-looking fleshy prong; (2) the hand bone (“metacarpal”) of the first finger forms a spike that sticks through the skin; and (3) on the underside of each thigh is a good-sized oval-shaped gland. Female Petropedetes lack the first two characteristics and the third is usually much more pronounced in males than in females. Presumably, the frogs have the spikes on their hands for either gripping females during mating or for use when fighting other males for resources. In fact, many of the males in the stream at Kwano have scars on their bellies, which are presumably from fighting with one another. To my knowledge, this is the first evidence of male-male fighting in any Petropedetes species. In the future, I would like to conduct field studies of Petropedetes so that we can figure out for certain that they are fighting as well as exactly what they are fighting over. Is it access to mates, calling sites, nice spots for eggs to be laid, or some other unknown resource? Only time and more research will tell.

A large male of Petropedetes parkeri. Note the weird “fleshy points” sticking out the tympanum (the ear, which looks like a big circle just behind the eye).

In addition to frogs, I was really surprised by how much mammal diversity I saw, especially since I spent only three nights at Kwano. I saw mona monkeys (Cercopithecus mona), the mantled black and white colobus (Colobus guereza), olive baboons (Papio anubis), putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans), waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), and even an African clawless otter (Aonyx capensis) and a giant otter shrew (Potamogale velox). It was a lot of fun to see so much “charismatic mega-fauna.”

After leaving Kwano, I traveled back up the Mambilla Plateau for a final night at the NMFP field station so that I could organize specimens and supplies that I left at the field station for future work. The following morning, I started a long day’s trip to Gombe, where I met up with lecturers from Gombe State University whom I had met during the previous week at NMFP. I left the NFMP field station at about 6 a.m., walked for a little less than an hour to the main road in Yelwa, got a taxi by 8 a.m. or so, traveled by taxi to Jalingo (about four-and-a-half hours), and then got a new taxi to Gombe. I arrived in Gombe around 6:30 p.m. and then took a motorcycle to the campus of Gombe State University, so that by 7 p.m., I had more or less arrived. Fieldwork is often full of these long days of travel, but I can’t complain as the travel was relatively easy, safe, and not very expensive.

While I was at Gombe State University (GSU), I met with many different staff members as well as the university’s Vice Chancellor. GSU is only a few years old, but already they’ve made remarkable progress. I was impressed by the campus and facilities. The school is currently expanding the resources that they have available and planning for a new medical school. It was a great pleasure to get to meet and interact with the staff at GSU. I was even invited to give a public lecture, which attracted a pretty good audience considering it was announced that same morning. GSU has comfortable guest accommodations, a nice library facility with a room full of computers with Internet access, the beginnings of a zoo, some beginning orchards of dates and other fruits, and seems very safe. I really recommend visiting GSU to anyone passing through Gombe!

Dave giving a presentation on his research at Gombe State University in Gombe.