Would You Put Me Down, Please?


Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were scanning Google Earth and came upon a forest in Mozambique that had never been mapped, so they set out to see what they could find. They found the forest of Mount Mabu, teeming with unusual species of plants and animals.

The pristine condition of the Mount Mabu forest is attributed to two things:  its remote location and and the fact that Mozambique was embroiled in a civil war for the past 20 years, which finally ended in the mid-1990s. Even locals didn't know much about the forest.

Among the expedition's discoveries were three species of butterflies new to science, a new species of adder, six birds that are globally threatened, and this perhaps terrified pygmy chameleon.

"This is potentially the biggest area of medium-altitude forest I'm aware of in southern Africa, yet it was not on the map."

-- expedition leader Jonathan Timberlake, RBC Kew

Shown is a pygmy chameleon found in the Mount Mabu forest.

Link - via timesonline

(image credit: Julian Bayliss/Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.


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