CONGO BASIN BIODIVERSITY

The Congo Basin includes the second largest rainforest on the planet. It is estimated to be disappearing at a current rate of about 1% per year with an increase year upon year of about another 10% as compared to each year previous. The Congo Basin is approximately 500 million acres and spans across 6 West African countries including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon including flooded forests, savannas, swamps and rivers. The basin is teeming with life and home to over 400 mammals, including forest elephants, lowland and mountain gorillas, and roughly 1,000 bird species plus an estimated 10,000+ plants, a significant percentage of which are not found anywhere else on Earth.


Butterflies, moths and other insects are present in staggering biodiversity with new species being identified each year. Furthermore, the biochemistries and biologies represented by the plants and animals and microorganisms inhabiting the area represent an incredible and valuable resource. 


The basin is home to roughly 75 million people and has been continuously inhabited for an estimated 50,000 years. In the central Cameroon area, the local people draw medicines and food from the forest with large caterpillars of the Saturniidae family being harvested in their millions (literally) in August and September each year and forming a significant part of the local diet.


Cameroon Ark is an attempt to discover, describe, conserve, educate, and provide - making an immediate impact locally but ultimately impacting globally through its mission. 

LUCIEN AND ANDREW

Directors

 Lucien Mballa Mbida – Local Program Director
Lucien is native Cameroonian and has been raising and collecting insects since age 9. Lucien is fluent in French (written and spoken) and acts as a coordinator of a network of volunteers including collectors (caterpillar ’hunters’), butterfly and moth raisers and guides.
The site is based immediately adjacent to a now protected 50 Hectare area of mixed primary and secondary growth forest in Obout Village. We aim to protect additional forest as the project progresses.
Lucien is originally from Mbalmayo and lives in Obout and Yaounde with his family.

Andrew Spicer – UK Coordinator and Charity Director
Andrew has a passion for the natural world. Andrew has a professional background in scientific research, technology and innovation development. He is CEO & Founder of Algenuity Limited and a Director of Spicer Consulting Limited both based in Bedfordshire, UK. 
Andrew acts as the Charity Director for Cameroon Ark in the United Kingdom where his main role is to act in mentoring and guidance of the project. He has run successful conservation projects in the USA and has raised butterflies and moths and been an avid wildlife gardener since he was 13 years old. Andrew lives in the UK with his two dogs and lots of caterpillars.


The Cameroon Ark Team.

Blog

By Cameroon Ark 27 Mar, 2022

Obout Village is situated roughly 80 km southeast of Yaoundé and has a population of about 500 people. Most dwellings are mud and straw brick construction with compacted dirt floors and corrugated metal roofs. There is a pharmacy, a local market, a central bar and eating place as well as a Catholic church and school. Water is generally provided as bottled water transported into the village regularly from Yaoundé. Water for washing clothes and for personal hygiene purposes is most often pumped from one or more local wells. It has high potential to be contaminated as sewers/latrines are simply pit latrines dug locally behind groups of 3 to 5 homes.

2020 represented a very tough year for Cameroon, especially rural villages as a result of the knock-on effect of Coronavirus measures taken by the government. Bottled water supply chains were massively interrupted and rural villages were without a normal supply of bottled water for a period of several months in the worst cases. The incidence of both cholera and malaria spiked markedly with as many as 40% of the inhabitants in Obout Village suffering from one or more of these diseases including the families most closely associated with management of the Cameroon Ark project.

Mr Lucien Mballa Mbida, the local project coordinator for Cameroon Ark, was struck with a very nasty bout of malaria that led to severe anemia in addition to the eruption of mouth and oesophageal ulcers making it difficult for him to eat or drink. His weight dropped to 50kg (from an average of 70 kg) and he was hospitalized as an emergency measure being both severely malnourished and dehydrated and with significant gut and liver inflammation. Cameroon Ark funds collected from a combination of charitable donations in addition to revenues from the sales of butterfly and moth specimens and livestock were used to pay for the urgent medical care that was necessary to save Lucien’s life – this included all necessary medication, food (including feeding tube) and care over his stay. He remained in hospital under Dr’s care for a period of 8 weeks. While we depleted all the project funds collected to date to save Lucien, without the Cameroon Ark project, it is highly likely that Mr Mballa Mbida would not have survived, leaving his wife and 5 children without their family head and the village without one of its most impactful residents.

Despite the extremely tough year, the Cameroon Ark project was highlighted in a very nice article that appeared in the October 2020 edition of the online nature magazine Jangala ( https://issuu.com/jangala/docs/251020/38 ) starting from page 38 and progressing to page 52 = CONSERVATION and EDUCATION .

Mr Mbida slowly returned to good health and by October 2020 had returned to his normal average weight. Based on the events of 2020, we decided that an absolute priority for the Cameroon Ark project was the purchase and installation of a clean-filtered water supply that would provide a supply of clean, filtered water both to the main project building but also access for members of the village. A deep well would be created and concrete lined and capped. A 6m tower would be constructed to hold a 2m3 closed water tank with level sensors and pumps to maintain a ready supply of water as water was drawn from the vessel. Three output supply taps were installed to provide access to clean water. This work was completed in late August 2021 with the first water being drawn in early September. This addition to the facility and the village will be transformational, life-changing and life-saving. The funding for this work came through a lot of hard work across the team as well as charitable donations = PROVISION .

The initial well that was bored was 15m deep. This was then lined in concrete and capped with necessary plumbing and pumps installed to pump water from the well up to the 2m3 vessel situated on a 6m tower. Plumbing from the tower to each of three different exterior taps was put in place for access to clean drinking water.

The next step in making the facility ready to receive paying guests, is to connect the water supply to the plumbing of the building to supply showers, flushing toilets and the kitchen sink with clean water. A water heater will be plumbed to the showers to allow hot showers to be enjoyed. There will be a cost associated with this work – expected to be in the range of €1500.

The interior of the main Cameroon Ark building now has all flooring and internal walls and ceilings installed. Basic electricity is available to the larger living areas and needs to be extended to all rooms. Bedrooms will have ceiling fans installed – this will act to prevent mosquitoes (as they dislike moving air) as well as for achieving a lower room temperature to support comfortable sleeping.

Furniture needs to be added as well as a fridge and cooker in the kitchen. There is also conversation around adding an air conditioning unit in the main common areas that would act to cool the full building when all doors and windows were closed. The estimate for completing these works is about €5000.

Three guest rooms are provided within the centre and there is provision for as many as 6 paying guests. One potential model that is being explored that would be fully in-line with the mission of the project is a resident scientist model where scientists can apply for grants of up to 6 months duration to allow them to take up residence on-site with the support of the local team. This would provide a base and facilities from which high-quality research could be conducted. We will seek donations of enabling laboratory equipment such as dissecting microscopes and field pinning equipment to support any entomological field research.

Once the internal work is done (aiming for spring/summer 2022), the possibility of welcoming paying guests becomes a reality. Sorelle Eyingo (Lucien Mballa Mbida’s wife) has recently completed a Diploma in Hospitality and Catering such that she will become the primary cook and residential manager for the facility as guests start to stay. Her educational costs were covered again by received funds from the Cameroon Ark project. 

This represents part of the project goals = EDUCATION.


Four other significant wins in 2021 are as follows:

1)    A commitment from a group of entomologists in Germany, to purchase 1000 moth specimens every month collected right on the Cameroon Ark site, across the calendar, as part of a biodiversity and seasonal tracking project to understand the local biodiversity of moth species across broad classes as well as the seasonal changes in local prevalence. This is necessary and important work to understand the impact of local deforestation and loss of habitat on biodiversity. The project was enabled by the quality of the work being done by Lucien and team and by the fact that we provide GPS data with all specimens enabling tracking of collecting sites to within a 100m2 area making all specimens scientifically valuable. This project has led to a monthly salary for the project amounting to €200/month.

 This represents all four of the project goals – PROVISION , as well as CONSERVATION , DISCOVERY and EDUCATION .

2)    A potentially new (to science) moth species in the family Saturniidae (giant silkmoths) being identified with a full larval life cycle described.

We are waiting for pupae to hatch at this time. If they appear to be consistent with the single image of the original female moth (above) that produced eggs then we will have identified a brand-new species and we will have the honour of naming the species. This is certainly a Biblical as well as scientific discipline. Along with this, a second, closely-related species ( Gonimbrasia rhodophila ), has also been discovered and described by us although a German research group has just published a short paper on this species too effectively beating us to the publication. It highlights just how relevant and the work being conducted by the project is along with its timeliness.

Finding a new species and new biology is the DISCOVERY part of the project. Along with the above, multiple life cycles have been described and interesting biology uncovered. Through the use of social media, awareness of the Congo Basin Forest and its natural resources has been raised as well as the challenges facing this area. This forms a vital part of CONSERVATION efforts – raising awareness or EDUCATION .

3)     Lucien has begun raising local caterpillar species as his training in animal husbandry towards developing another revenue generating income stream. He has done this under my direction and the goal would be to eventually produce local endemic species as pupae for sale to museums, butterfly parks and scientists – there is literally a wealth of undescribed biology within the Congo Basin Forest that is disappearing as we speak.

= EDUCATION & CONSERVATION & PROVISION

 4)     Lastly, the Cameroon Ark project contributed with images, life cycle information and cultural dietary preferences information as part of a comprehensive booklet (48 pages) that is now in its final edits before going to press and entitled:

Edible caterpillars and their foodplants in Kongo Central Province, Democratic Republic of Congo ” Author: Paul Latham = EDUCATION & DISCOVERY.


By Cameroon Ark - Andrew Pearce Spicer 30 Dec, 2019
We went to Obout in February 2019 hoping to have timed the trip to coincide with the peak early flight of Eudaemonia (Eustera) sp of which two are fairly common in Central Cameroon, Eudaemonia argiphontes and Eudaemonia troglophylla . We missed the peak flight with only a single male E argiphontes and a single female E troglophylla moth being seen.  We had intended to try to film Eudaemonia in flight in order to document the tail shape and aerodynamics in flight. With such few numbers we had limited opportunity to film the moths in active flight.

While observing the male E argiphontes (see photo) we noticed an obvious proboscis being actively extended. The gold-coloured proboscis was clearly composed of two fused, lateral tubes as in other Lepidoptera, and was coiled into the head when not being retracted. The moth was observed to be capable of drinking water using the proboscis suggesting that this structure is functional at least to drink water. How this behaviour integrates into the biology and life cycle of Eudaemonia species is unclear at this time - perhaps it is an adaptation that allows a comparatively lighter body as opposed to needing to store all water within retained body fluids necessitating a heavier body? This could be particularly relevant in the female moths who would be expected to retain a full compliment of ova at eclosion as is seen in other Saturniidae.

Why is this special? Most Saturniidae do NOT have functioning mouthparts or lack mouthparts entirely. There have been reports of certain Saturniidae species including Epiphora and Bunaea having vestigial mouthparts and accumulating around puddles of water, possibly to drink. It is clear that Eudaemonia have functional probosci - this must be followed up by a careful review of the other members of the genus as well as related genera.

Note added: over the course of 2019 we observed that female Eudaemonia troglophylla died quickly overnight in captivity unless they were housed in a cage with available surface water. By spraying the sides of the cages liberally with water every few hours,  female moths were kept alive for between 3 to 5 days. Female moths did not freely oviposit on cage sides but liberally oviposited on stems of Albizia when these were provided in the cages. Ova were oviposited in what appeared to be disorganised masses on stems with what appeared to be abdominal scales distributed liberally on the outside of the egg masses. Ova hatched within 6 days and quickly died without feeding. We suspect, again, that water is an intimate and necessary part of the biology of these moths and that newly hatched and extremely small first instar larvae need to drink water before feeding. This will be explored in 2020. 
By Cameroon Ark - Andrew Pearce Spicer 29 Jan, 2019
The genus Eudaemonia (formerly called Eustera ) consists of three species, all of which are found in Cameroon -  Eudaemonia argiphontes , E. troglophylla and E. argus, E. argiphontes has the longest tails (in relation to total wing dimensions) of any Lepidoptera described to date. But what's the deal with the tails?

                   Do they serve a function?
 
The answer is a resounding Yes! The male E argiphontes in the photograph above may give a clue......... If you look closely you will see that its right hindwing tail-tip is missing.....perhaps due to a bat strike. A recently published study by Juliette Rubin and co-workers at the University of Florida concluded that hindwing tail-length correlated strongly with the ability of specific Saturniidae species to avoid successful strikes by bats on the wing.  When they progressively shortened the tail length in the Luna moth or American moon moth, Actias luna, the successful strike percentage by bats went up substantially. It seems that movement of the tail-tip during flight creates an active turbulent space in the air that is fools the bats echolocation sonar such that it strikes at the tail-tip, missing the vital, softer body.

So it seems the longer the tail, the better the survivability. It follows that the further away the tail-tip is from the body of the moth, the more likely it is that the moth will survive. It also follows that the longer tails would be found more often in male Saturniidae as compared to females, based upon a probability function associated with amount of active flight time of the two respective sexes. 

But when does a tail get so long that it causes manoeuvrability issues and what shapes do the tails take in flight? If the distance from the body of the moth needs to be maximised one would expect that the tail tips are held at the greatest distance possible from the body. We will be attempting to understand this during our trip to Cameroon from Feb 9-16, 2019 when we intend to trap and film adults (males and females) of the three Eudaemonia species. If we are successful we will be posting images of these moths in flight as well as short movies. By closely studying the images we may learn more about the way these incredible insects survive.

Did you also know......only one of these species has a described life cycle.......and even that has not been published to date. We will attempt to describe life cycles for these and many other incredible insects as well as discover and describe new ecologies, biologies and survival strategies as Cameroon Ark works within its mission to discover, educate, conserve and provide. 

We hope that this will be the first of many blogs that will highlight just a small fraction of Congo Basin National Forest. Watch this space for updates!
Andrew

Juliette J. Rubin, Chris A. Hamilton, Chris J. W. McClure, Brad A. Chadwell, Akito Y. Kawahara, Jesse R. Barber. The evolution of anti-bat sensory illusions in moths. Science Advances , 2018; 4 (7): eaar7428 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar7428


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