Fantastic expedition to rain forest canopy locates new species

By David Zizzo

Published: August 14, 2007

As the moon rose over a bay beside the remote, mountainous rain forest, Dante Fenolio was on the ropes. Literally.

Moonlight spilled over the clouds, the tops of which were lower than Fenolio's perch in a climbing harness 70 feet above the forest floor. There, using part of an innovative system developed by a French company for traversing and living in, even on, the forest canopy, Fenolio was attached to ropes fixed to high branches of an "emergent tree” that towered above the others. Tree frogs filled the night with sound. Fireflies sparkled across a carpet of treetops.

"It was really a spectacular evening,” Fenolio recalls.

But the view isn't what brought this herpetologist and his colleagues to this spot halfway around the world. They came to the Masaola Peninsula of Madagascar, one of the world's largest islands on the southeastern coast of Africa, for the creatures, some of which had never been seen before. One, a frog that lives in water pockets high in the trees, was discovered and documented by Fenolio and several associates. Earlier this year, it became officially known as Anodonthyla hutchisoni, named for a University of Oklahoma professor emeritus of zoology, Vic Hutchison, Fenolio's mentor during graduate school at OU.

Field work in places like this — where nature is at its most diverse and intense — is what many biologists live for. Fenolio has made numerous treks to such distant and intriguing environments to study his passion: amphibians. He's especially fascinated by environments that challenge those creatures to develop innovative ways to survive, such as burrowing into giant termite mounds in Brazil to find food and shelter from predators and the heat.

On the Madagascar trip in October 2001, Fenolio and fellow OU graduate student Mark Walvoord, along with Jim Stout, at that time head of herpetology at the Oklahoma City Zoo, were focused on life above the forest floor. So dense is the canopy in rain forests that much of life there must find ways to live closer to sunlight, and that means in the canopy.

Studying things up there is such a challenge that it's no surprise most research involves the forest floor. Enter the "canopy raft.” One of several innovations by the company Radeau Des Cimes (Raft of the Summits), the raft is an inflated tube curled into the shape of a huge pretzel for structural stability, with netting stretched beneath it. Suspended under a blimp, the raft is lowered gently onto the treetops, where it is fixed to numerous main limbs in the trees on which it rests.

Scientists then work, sleep and even erect small tents on this net platform.

"Walking around on it is a little difficult. It takes some getting used to,” said Fenolio, now a doctoral candidate at the University of Miami, Fla. Fenolio, who recently accepted a position at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, spent three days on the raft. Since much of his work investigating life in the trees at varying heights was done at night, he slept mostly during daylight in a sleeping bag, which was "fine until it rained.” Fortunately, he said, in the tropical heat, "you dry out real quick.”

The raft has drawbacks, though. Wildlife tend to disperse from areas of human activity, Fenolio said, so other Radeau Des Cimes technology is more effective for canopy research, he said. A single-person hot air balloon, for instance. Tethered to a cable that runs almost a mile across the forest treetops, the balloon can float a researcher to study life in the trees along the route. Another innovation is the "canopy sled.” Suspended below a blimp, which could only be used during morning low-wind conditions, this room-size inflated raft carries several researchers and skims the treetops, stopping at places of interest.

"That piece of equipment is amazing,” he said.

Except when you bump into a huge pocket of arboreal ants. "It was like black water streaming out of this nest,” Fenolio said, recalling how he and other researchers would be swatting ants the rest of the sled trip.

Another innovation is the ISOS unit, a 40-sided geodesic tree fort in which researchers could work or could relax in hammocks. Fenolio spent eight days in an ISOS unit, one of which was 100 feet above the ground in an emergent tree.

"When the wind would blow, you would sway 20 feet back and forth,” he said. "The first time you do it, it's a little nerve-racking.”

Terrified of heights, Stout spent most of his time — when he wasn't aboard the sled — on or near the ground. Being a larger person, he also was more suited to controlling the ropes from the ground for colleagues in the trees. "I would swing them over” to other locations, he said.

You're never sure what you'll find up there. Like crabs. Apparently, Fenolio said, crabs had managed to crawl up the steep slope from the ocean and from rivers, found their way into the canopy and were living in phytotelmata, or pockets of water in trees.

Despite Hollywood depictions of rain forests as impenetrable tangles of vegetation inhabited by deadly predators and hostile tribes, most are relatively benign, Fenolio said. For one thing, the lack of sunlight on the forest floor means there's little vegetation down there. And on Madagascar, there are no venomous snakes, although there are large, aggressive tree spiders. The largest predator is the foussa (sometimes spelled fousa or foosa,) which looks like a wiry, agile housecat.

In Madagascar, Stout awoke one morning to see shadows moving outside his tent. Tossing open the flap, he said, "There were three lemurs just sitting there looking at me.” The monkey-like primates probably were curious about the "big purple caterpillar” (the tent) that had appeared overnight.

"They yelled and took off,” Stout said.

For the most part, Fenolio said, "the things I worry about are the things you can't see.” Those mostly are diseases spread by mosquitoes, such as malaria and yellow fever, and parasites.

Rain forests are under seige by civilization, the researchers said. In Madagascar, one can see fires in the distance, part of the constant assault on these oases of nature, researchers said. Where the forest has been scarred, red dirt running off the land stains the ocean.

"It actually looks like it's bleeding,” Stout said.

Some governments are trying to protect rain forests, Fenolio said. One of those is Brazil, where Fenolio does environmental consulting four months each year.

Stout is a building inspector for the city of Oklahoma City, but he maintains his lifelong interest in herpetology. Later this year, he and Fenolio will travel to Peru for research in the "cloud forests.” Wherever the unusual amphibians and reptiles are is where Fenoli hopes to be.

Such treks, of course, mean time away from his family, which includes a new daughter.

"I have a very, very understanding wife,” Fenolio said.

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