Into the Night: Tales of Nocturnal Wildlife Expeditions

5. Nights on the Equator

99 FIve Nights on the equator Ann Kohlhaas Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz. A common sound in the tropical night. Too common. Much too common. Actually, too common anywhere. At least according to everyone I know, or have ever met, or anyone sane. Bzzzzz. Mosquitoes seem to be the bane of everyone who spends time outdoors . Especially in the tropics. Especially at night. The ecologist in me should defend mosquitoes as part of the greater food web, as essential food for many others. But no. The all-too-human person in me resents the sleep lost, the itchy bumps, and the diseases mosquitoes have already transmitted and will gladly, although unwittingly , transmit in the future. Bzzzzz. Much of my research has been in the tropics. With thoughts of my many tropical adventures, I reminisce about things seen and experienced in one of my favorite places on earth. Bzzzz. DOI: 10.5876/9781607322702:c05 Ann Kohlhaas 100 A Primate’s Day My alarm rings at 5:00 a.m. It’s dark outside and it feels a little chilly. At home in the United States, I wouldn’t have thought this temperature was chilly, but one gets used to warmer temperatures in Southeast Asia and it feels unpleasantly cool this morning. At this research station on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, there is no electricity and it’s not worth the time and effort to fire up my kerosene lantern. A couple of candles provide enough light for my few simple tasks. Choosing clothes to wear in the semi-dark isn’t difficult. The field clothes I have are all cotton, loose fitting, and characterized by various rips and repairs. They are also all brownish (a hue that is sometimes acquired during the workday). The only choice is whether to wear yesterday’s muddy pants or introduce a clean pair to the Sulawesi environment. Yesterday’s pants aren’t standing on their own yet; they should be fine for another day. I came to what is now called Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park in Sulawesi to conduct research on the Gorontalo macaque, a monkey species that lives here—and nowhere else in the world—and has not been studied in any great detail. The attraction of this study area and this particular species of monkey was that it was unique and so little understood. Indonesia is a huge and diverse country, spanning 3,000 miles and including over 16,500 islands. The country literally ranges from the large islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo on the Asian continental shelf to the island of Papua New Guinea on the Australian continental shelf. Between those large continental islands are hundreds of miles of ocean and hundreds of islands of varying sizes. Among these oceanic islands is Sulawesi, which was one of the many Indonesian islands where Alfred Russell Wallace traveled, collected exotic specimens, and developed his theory of evolution independently of but contemporaneously with Charles Darwin in the mid-1800s. After dressing, I go out on the porch to eat breakfast with a lit candle for company. It’s still dark, but I prefer to eat outside and look Nights on the equator 101 5.1. Toraut Research Station, Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park, Sulawesi over the nearby fields as the sun rises rather than stay in my mostly featureless room. The field station is pretty nice. It was built with World Bank money in the mid-1980s, apparently in anticipation of Project Wallacea and its many researchers. Bad timing resulted in the field station being built after Project Wallacea had ended and all the researchers had left. I guess the national park authority expected a continued research presence, but I’m the first long-term researcher to stay here. The few rangers stay in a couple of the support houses. I’m occupying one room in one of the five guesthouses. Occasionally, another room is occupied by a visiting American or Indonesian research associate or, rarely, an intrepid traveler. But most of the time my trusty ranger assistants , Max and Junaid, and I are the entire research team. Soon after my arrival, Max Welly Lela was assigned to work with me by the park supervisor because he had previous research experience and speaks English relatively well. I later chose Junaid to be an assistant because he impressed me with his work ethic when he was cutting Ann Kohlhaas 102 trails for the...