Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 18
E N V I RO NM EN T
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GORONGOSA SP ECIAL
Naskrecki finds many biological questions can be
best answered with a slow walk. Even as an experienced
naturalist, he finds the world opens up when he moves
slowly and starts to notice things: a dried-up leaf on
the side of the path may be hiding a caterpillar on the
underside. Or it may not be a leaf at all, it might be a
moth. Or a leaf-mimicking insect. Scientific findings
are everywhere in the park, underfoot and overhead.
Gorongosa is a living laboratory in the wild.
When Naskrecki first visited Gorongosa in 2012,
he was completely blown away by the diversity of life.
He saw an untold abundance of species interacting
on all levels, from millipedes crawling in leaf litter to
bugs embedded in the fur of bats. He had worked in
other parts of Africa, so he thought he’d be prepared
for Gorongosa, but what he found at the park left him
in awe and wonder. The international scientific community knew so little about this part of the world that
90 percent of what he was seeing was new to science,
he says. “It was just this feeling that I was entering a
PAge s 1 5- 1 7: Piotr NA s kr ec k i
FLY AWAY Mozambican student rosa Félix
tivane releases a Paradise Flycatcher after
taking its biometric data.
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