It’s been a fairly quite week here in the EDGE office, as many of the team are still away on fieldwork. Sam and Helen have had a busy month searching for a poorly-known population of Hispaniolan solendon (Solendon paradoxus) in Haiti. They went armed with the knowledge that this remarkable insectivore had somehow survived the catastrophic impact of introduced dogs, cats and mongooses following European colonisation of Hispaniola. However, has it also withstood the loss of virtually all of Haiti’s forests in recent years? If so, how has it managed to cling to survival when virtually all of the other mammals native to the Caribbean have been wiped out? These are questions Sam was hoping to find the answer to. He returns to the UK soon, so watch this space for news of the solenodon.
Jonathan is currently in West Papua, perhaps scaling the remote peaks of the Cyclops Mountains even as I write! He is hoping to make contact with local researchers and villagers and to assess the suitability of the mysterious mountain tips for next year’s planned mammal surveys focusing on the possibly extinct Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi). Jonathan has no access to email in the distant mountains so we eagerly await his return next month for news of this expedition.