Day 4 - Vale da Castanheira

On this day we went for the first time to the hardest point of the whole Deserta Grande: Vale da Castanheira, the lair of the fabulous spider, Hogna ingens, which only inhabits this secluded valley. Of course that we needed to start this walk by the Vereda, and there we went, with the help of Clemente and Manuel José, who gladly helped us to carry material for pitfall trapping. After the Vereda, we headed for Risco, which is a path in the East side of the top of Deserta Grande. In this point you have some places where you have only few tens of centimetres to put your feet, and if you miss those centimetres, you have absolutely no chance of another try. If you suffer from height sickness, you shouldn’t walk in places like Risco and if you don’t, go slow anyway! There is quite an impressive point in Risco, in which you can easily look to the west side of the island from a totally vertical wall, I must confess that I only had a brief peek from it… Another point of interest in this long walk through the top of the island was the passage through the highest point in the island, the Rocha do Barbusano, with 479 mt; by this time we were reaching lunch time but just a bit more through Pedregal with some points full of lava bombs (later I got to know that these are not lava bombs strictly speaking but some kind of boring geological thing like spheroidal disjunction, according to Pardal, but I will continue to use “lava bombs” to designate these so-cool formations), there we were just about to get to the Valley. Nothing like a 8 km hike through cliffs and mountain tops to open the apetite!

After reaching the Valley, Clemente and Manuel José went back to Doca, and I, Pedro and Isamberto started the Hogna ingens assignement, which consisted on a transect starting from the house located in the southmost part of the valley (I should call this house Hotel Castanheira from now on) following the west side of the valley to the northern most point turning back from the eastern side of the valley. Presently, the spider is aggregated in the northern most point of the Valley, and this is due to the invasion of the valley by the herb Phallaris aquatica, which covers the ground around the rocks and obstructs the spider’s hideouts. In the central area of the Valley, you can barely see H. ingens. By the end of the afternoon, with only about half of the transect done, time to return to Hotel Castanheira. This piece was quite hard for me, since I just added 5,5 km to the 8 km done in the morning, and because I don’t reach even close to the mountain goats Isamberto and Pedro (in the good sense, of course), I achieved the needed rest many minutes after them.

The confort in Hotel Castanheira is scarse or non-existant, depending on the quality of your sleeping bag and mattress, plus at night many “cagarros” (Calonectris diomedea borealis) started to fly about the Valley, doing their distinctive call, that also didn’t contributed to get some sleep. But because you don’t walk in Risco at night, this was not a preference, it was a need!

Day 3 - South Plateau

On the 3rd day we went to know one of the sites where we would do a Cobra protocol (for those who don’t know it’s an acronym for Conservation Oriented Biodiversity Rapid Assessment): the Planalto Sul (or South Plateau). Up we went again in the Vereda, and after passing Eira, it was a relatively easy walk to Planalto Sul. Time to see the terrain and – of course – to lift some more rocks. Among other spiders, Isamberto found the second species of Dysdera, and according to him I might’ve caught the third one, but I would need to confirm this later in the lab. The weather was sunny and it was an almost perfect afternoon.

Day 2 - The Vereda

After spending the morning turning some more rocks in the Doca, after lunch we went to know the Vereda. The climb demands a bit from you, especially if you are spending the last weeks or months shining a seat with your ass, either in the lab or in classes. But it sure is rewarding once you get to the top! Not only for the adrenalin of climbing such a cliff, or the great views you have while you are doing it, but also because the top reveals a different place, with a new landscape and – of course – new places for spiders to be hidden. :P

After we got up there, we stopped the nearby flat area called Eira, which was a place used by those who tried to colonize the island to plant cereals, and where you can still see some shallow rocky walls, made by those early settlers. Aditionally, as we got here we found another mark left by these guys: goats! The Natural Park tried to eradicate these voracious eaters of endemic flora, but with no success, and they proliferate now, as the attempt to eradicate them was abandoned some time ago. After I and Isamberto turned some rocks and Pedro took some photos, we initiated the way back to Doca. While we were there the fog made its appearance but it started to vanish before we went down. Isamberto found a Dysdera, fact that surprised me a lot, and after we talked a bit about it, I realized that there should be at least 3 different species in Deserta Grande, but not even one of those is so far described! Promising…

Day 1 - The Arrival

By 9 am Pedro anda I arrived to the boat of the Navy that would take us to Deserta Grande for 2 weeks of arachnological fieldwork, from which I will retrieve the data to build my Masters thesis.

We left along with 3 vigilantes of the Natural Park of Madeira, Clemente, the team leader, Manuel José, the (great) cook, and Isamberto Silva, known madeiran naturalist that a special keen for spiders, of whom we requested to have the company.

The boat trip was great, with the flat sea during all time and a sunny weather. We even saw some dolphins on the way. Because there was some morning mist in the air, it was only after some time that we could spot Ilhéu Chão, Deserta Grande and Bugio. As we were approaching Deserta Grande, I could read a mentally built neon sign on the island saying “How many spiders can you find?” and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the rocks. After we transferred ourselves to the boat and then to the vigilantes’ house at Doca, we waited a bit to start to lift some rocks in the vicinities of the house. Meanwhile, a walk around Doca, the flat piece of land created by a gigantic landslide in the 1890’s, that, according to the vigilantes, gave birth to a big wave that washed some lives of the madeiran coast. The verticall wall of rock rising behind Doca reminds us of the volcanic nature of the island as well as the power of the erosion forces, as I spotted some rocks falling from above. I rapidly assimilated the idea that collecting spiders in other points of the island will require a good shape, because the ascent to the top of the island is done through a stairway dug in the rock. It’s a 380 meters climb through the steepest cliffs called “The Vereda”. I will initiate myself to it tomorrow.

Today, because the sea was so flat, we took the time to visit an erosion cave just some meters south of the Doca, the Gruta dos Roques de Castro, from where we grabbed 2 interesting species of spiders, an undetermined agelenidae (supposedly) and a species of Zygiella that appears different from the widespread x-notata. In the rest of the afternoon, we turned some stones in the Doca, and already with some interesting specimens.

New spider species

It was recently published in The Journal of Arachnology the description of a new spider species from the portuguese mainland: Trachyzelotes minutus Crespo, 2010, was found in the pitfall traps of Sara Mendes, in her last project on the "montado" ecosystem throughout Alentejo, in 2008. This is a small species, the smallest known Trachyzelotes, as the only male didn't reach 3 mm and the females barely pass 3 mm. The species can be distinguished morphologically through the analysis of its copulatory structures, but can be considered generally as small brown spider, like the majority of Gnaphosidae species (scale bars = 0,1mm).

This is only one among the relevant amount of new species already found in Portugal by me and my colleagues. The important factor here is time to make proper descriptions and to interact with museums in order to check the specimens stored in their collections.

Ugly dogs @ Terra-Chã

Given the international aspect of the team currently present at the Azorean Biodiversity Group I will type this in english. This is a small post dedicated to the 2 ugly dogs that reside at the Terra-Chã "campus/WW II hospital", which is currently having its last days as a part of the University of the Azores since we are now moving to a new building, closer to Angra. The one thing about these dogs that really amazes me, and perhaps my colleague François Rigal, is that they are sooooo ugly!!! It really makes the day begin with a smile on the face once we see these dogs because we think "how can you be so ugly?" and these dogs should be quite a feat of nature! We will surely miss them when we leave in some days/weeks/months/years/centuries(?).
The short one s the dominant male, and according to Pedro Cardoso, his name is Javali ("wild boar"). :)
Forgive my mobile phone quality for these photos.
Well, I need to get back to sorting and packing arthropods for DNA analyzis. Reminder: need to ask Pardal for the frickin' photos for the remaining posts for the BALA II expeditions.

São Jorge (II)

Some days after Faial (II), off I went with Pardal back to São Jorge, to collect the final samples for Bala II. Like in Faial, I finally had the time to do some sightseeing with Pardal, with geocaching as a direction to some spots.One of the most impressive places in São Jorge that I went to was the Lighthouse of Rosais, which is now inactive due to the last earthquake, that destroyed most of the building. A cache was located in the most Western tip of the island, just above a huge cliff! If there is one island that calls for landslides in the Azores, that is São Jorge.

A very nice stop was when we went to Fajã dos Vimes. In São Jorge you have several Fajãs, which I have described earlier as small pieces of flat land caused by a big landslide. In many fajãs, people don't live there all year round, but in São Jorge, you can find a decent amount of people living in these beautiful but dangerous pieces of land all year round. Here we logged a cache with a very nice wooden container.We didn't have the time to visit the most beautiful and known Fajã of the entire archipelago, Fajã do Santo Cristo, located in the Caldeira with the same name, as this place is only acessible by foot and we didn't have enough time to go to this nice place, that we could see from the plane. In the photo: I, logging a cache in the beginning of the trail that leads to the Caldeira do Santo Cristo.
The last stop was Morro de Velas, a volcanic tuft in the vicinities of Velas. One more hike, one more cache, one more view over the landscape, and we were finished. Here I caught an adult female of Arctosa perita, which wasn't reported to São Jorge yet.