We are hugely excited to announce the results of our Makira 2023 Expedition which was the first multi-taxa expedition by Re:Wild’s Search for Lost Species, in partnership with Re:Wild, The American Bird Conservancy, The Wildlife Conservation Society, BINCO and The Peregrine Fund. Our results have already been published by CNN, MSN and other AP outlets.
The Makira 2023 Expedition rediscovered 21 species which as defined by Re:Wild have not been seen for >10 years. The highest profile rediscovery was the 10-inch Giant Millipede Spirostreptus sculptus rediscoverd by Dr Dmitry Telnov of the BMNH.
Other rediscoveries included five species of jumping spider, 17 new species of spider, and an exciting new species of Zebra spider which were not thought to live in the rainforests of Madagascar.
One evening a hanging egg sac in the entrance of a small cave caught the eye of one of the team members. “I immediately recognized them as something special,” said Brogan Pett, director of the SpiDiverse working group at BINCO and doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter. “Pendulous egg sacs is one of the characteristics of the family of zebra spiders this new species belongs to. I crawled a short way inside the cave and saw a few adult spiders guarding egg sacs—they were quite large spiders and it was remarkable that they had gone unrecognized for so long.”
The ichthyologists on the team from Antananarivo University experienced success, rediscovering the three iridescent and translucent fish species on the lost species list; the Makira rainbow fish (Bedotia alveyi), lost since 2003, Rheocles sp., lost since 2006, and Ptychochromis makira, lost since 2003. “When we didn’t find anything during the first five days of the expedition it was very frustrating,” said Tsilavina Ravelomanana, fish biologist at Antananarivo University, who had been to Makira 20 years earlier to survey freshwater fish. “We sampled a small tributary of the Antainambalana River, then the main river, then upstream and then downstream, but we still didn’t find any fish. We changed our strategy and sent our local guides on a two-to-three-day hike away from our base camp to interview local fishermen.” Two of the expedition’s local guides hiked to a series of waterfalls a few days walk away from the expedition base-camp where they were able to identify the three species of lost fish.
The full list of lost species rediscovered includes:
Spirostreptus sculptus, (millipede) lost since 1897
Tomocyrba decollata Simon, (jumping spider) lost since 1900
Echinussa vibrabunda, (spider) lost since 1901
Tetragonoderus tomasinae, (beetle) lost since 1931
Omophron amandae, (beetle) lost since 1948
Sapintus acuminatus, (ant-like flower beetle) lost since 1958
Spaintus mediodilatatus, (ant-like flower beetle) lost since 1958
Hypaspistes bouvieri, (ant-like flower beetle) lost since 1958
Pandisus sp. (spider) lost since 1968
Myrmarachne eumenes, (jumping spider) lost since 1978
Pandisus parvulus Wanless, (jumping spider) lost since 1980
Nethinius longipennis, (beetle) lost since 1980
Goleba punctata, (jumping spider) lost since 1980
Makira rainbow fish (Bedotia alveyi), lost since 2003
Ptychochromis makira, (fish) lost since 2003
Rheocles sp., (fish) lost since 2006
Kaliella crandalli, (snail) lost since 2010
Oxypristis conspicuous, (leaf-footed bug) lost since 1996
Zetophloeus pugionatus, (straight-snouted weevil) lost since 2010
Cenoscelis cistelina, (darkling beetle) lost since 2011
Tamatasida tuberculosa tuberculosa, (darkling beetle) lost since 1949
Whilst the Makira Forest remains the largest and most intact forest in Madagascar, spanning 3,800km2 of intact lowland rainforest, our research team concernedly identified areas of illegal logging during the expedition, which poses a significant risk to the endemic species that are found in the forest, and the rare rediscovered species our expedition identified. The hope is that the data from this expedition will strengthen the national importance of the Makira Forest and attract the further research that this area desperately needs.
Descriptions for the 17 new species discovered during the expedition will be published in due course.
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