INSECT journey: Mariel's progress from remote beginnings

In the Summer one of the Oxford University Expedition objectives was to begin to develop INSECT TRANSETS and long-term monitoring at Mareja.  This requires the Rangers and hopefully our new connection with Unilurio (the University in Pemba) to follow up and collect twice a year.  And potentially we could even involve interested visitors in the project.

But information gathered will open up the world of insects for us and help build a picture of: habitat diversity, species composition, and highlight changes and impacts from pressures such as hunting to climate change.  Vital data that will support our actions, build awareness and direct our management.

It is a many staged process and it is very hard to imagine that from sunny days collecting in the field that these steps will progress smoothly or at all ...and result in identification at Oxford Natural History Museum... and recording in an esteemed data base or publication for all to access and disseminate.

The two greatest hurdles where finding the right alcohol mix to preserve the insects and getting export licenses. In the end small bottles of 90% medical alcohol and toxic cheap vodka (pineapple flavour!) were located in Pemba and mixed up to make enough preservative.  Then gettinng the export license was a whole other saga.

But the many bags of insects ARRIVED in Oxford and Mariel has been volunteering for over 6 months to begin the sorting process and here are the results

It is very moving to see the reserve name neatly presented on labels and the insects carefully sorted and prepared for full indentification. Mozambique is very poorly represented in national collections.  

Sitting in Mareja in such remote surroundings I wish the Rangers could feel the full weight of this small but significant contribution towards science. But I will greatly enjoy showing them these photos.