The quest to explore Colombia’s untouched jungles

With a TV dish shaped object sticking out back, and a rifle hanging over his shoulder, Glenn Seeholzer looks fantastically out of place in the middle of the jungle. He is chasing an elusive bird of early morning habits and a shrill whistle. So far, he hasn found it.

Wholesale Replica Bags He has spent the last two weeks prying the forests near Medina, a small town near the best replica designer Chingaza National Park, in central Colombia. With 59 other researchers, he is part of the Colombia Bio expedition, a two week expedition with replica bags online the mission of trying to understand its biodiversity. Wholesale Replica Bags

Designer Replica Bags Seeholzer, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of best replica bags online National History in New York, and a collaborator at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute in Colombia, wants to record the song of a dusky capped flycatcher (Myiarchus tuberculifer), and then hunt down the same bird he recorded. It is a mission that should answer questions about one of evolutionary science great mysteries: what leads to the formation of new species? Designer Replica Bags

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A couple years ago, walking around this forest at dawn with a rifle and an odd backpack would have been suicidal. The guerrillas from Colombia left wing revolutionary army Farc wouldn have cared if you were doing it in the name of science.

The war

used to advise my students to remember that Shakira song Ciega, Sordomuda, Jhon Cesar Neita says one night. It was a survival rule of thumb: the song title translates as deaf mute is a veteran entomologist who had to learn how to deal with the Colombian conflict to do his field work. He studies coprophagous beetles, those who eat other animals faeces. Chasing them in the thick forests of the Colombian Pacific region often meant meeting guerrillas or paramilitaries face to face.

View image of Researchers studying book (Credit: Sergio Fabara)

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Handbags Replica Colombia is regarded as the second most biodiverse country in the world, but its fauna and flora have evaded study because of the war Handbags Replica

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Replica Designer Handbags They jumped at the opportunity. Colombia is regarded as the second most biodiverse country in the world, but its fauna and flora have evaded study because of the war. The government has now started the Colombia Bio programme which will fund 20 expeditions to remote zones where fighting has limited research. Replica Designer Handbags

View image of Scientist holding frog (Credit: Sergio Fabara)

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In them, researchers go deep inside a remote area to obtain best replica bags plant and animal samples, often by walking for hours in harsh environments. All this information will feed the Colombian Biological Information System, and many of the preserved bodies and organs will end up in the Humboldt institute collection, where they will be available for other researchers in the future.

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No wonder the guerrillas wanted to control the zone. It is the perfect place to hide

It is an interesting place for biologists to explore. worlds clash there: the prairies from the Orinoco river, the Andean forest, and some Amazonian elements, explains Andres Cuervo, a senior biologist at the Humboldt Institute. The last expedition to the area was in 1997, and it didn’t really get a lot of information.

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Did war shelter Colombian nature from destruction? It is hard to know. Guerrillas and paramilitaries may have helped isolate forests from deforestation and exploitation, but were a lot of brutal environmental impacts says Garc The destruction of oil pipes contaminated bodies of water in many parts of the country, and designer replica luggage landmines or bombs could have killed big mammals, like bears or jaguars. So far, the effect of the conflict on the local ecosystem is largely unknown.

That is why Andr Acosta was so happy to have found this little goldish frog, a Rhaebo glaberrimus. only breed in water bodies that meet certain conditions, and need well preserved habitats, like tropical rainforests, he says, holding it in his hands. Finding it is a good clue that this forest is in replica bags good shape.