Sunday 26th October, from the base camp.

Philippe, Vincent and Tony are back after a few days spent in the forest. Vincent, an orchid specialist, climbs up trees to collect them. He also climbs mountain peaks. The day before yesterday he climbed up to 800m, and yesterday up to 1,000m. He wishes to go back up there with Philippe, an amphibian and reptile specialist, and Christophe and Borja, who study birds. This time they are going to bivouac at the summit, so that they will have more time on the field and Philippe will be able to catch his favourite preys at night.

Vincent climbing up a coconut palm – Copyright : J.C. Pintaud / IRD

For his part, Tony, a cricket specialist, is going to stay at the camp to enter his data on his computer and start analysing his audio recordings. He has spotted a few interesting specimens near the camp that he is going to try to capture. Tony loves crickets so much that he even sleeps with his “pets” in his tent, allegedly so as not to miss their night songs and protect them from ant attacks.

(translated by Evelyne Viloteau, L2 SVC–Life & Earth Sciences–UM2, France)