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Text by Sabine Cudney-Valenzuela Tana Up in the sky, after 32 hours of travel, I opened the airplane window to a pitch-black night. On the ground, you could barely see any lights, just the occasional orange moon-shaped glows of slash-and-burn agriculture. I landed at Antananarivo, the “city of a thousand soldiers,” by midnight and dragged myself through Immigration and Customs until 1:30 AM. On my way out, a smiling man who had been waiting for me all this time received me with my name written on a piece of paper and helped me get my luggage on the car. We tried to exchange a few words, but it soon became clear that he only spoke Malagasy and that my French was much worse than I could remember. But we managed to find our way through choppy words and gestures, and he dropped me off at my hotel in the city for a well-deserved rest. The next morning, I went to explore the city. The streets of Tana seem frozen in time in many ways. Maybe it’s the old Renault 4s and the Citroen 2CVs that fill the streets, or the brick-pitched-roof houses built all together, or the people wearing fedoras and semiformal suits. The city gives you a feeling like everything is a lively market. A woman piles up mangoes and lychees in small pyramids next to dry fish, while another one tries on lambas of every color and negotiates the price. It doesn’t take long before I hear a word that will define my position in this country: “Bonjour Vazaha!” It means foreigner/white person, and it’s used regularly by people in the streets to call my attention. People crowd the sidewalks selling all kinds of stuff next to each other: chickens, fruits, pans, clothes, plastics, crafts. An old lady is selling a small bucket of roasted peanuts. Another man extends a bandana on the floor and sells two used belts, and an alarm clock. Kids carrying kids don’t sell anything but extend their hand squishing their fingers together as if to catch a drop of rain.  The view from my hotel in Tana
After two days and several car breakdowns, we finally made it to Ranomafana. It’s a small town next to a wide river, and it got its name, “hot water”, from the nearby hot springs. Many people know it only as an addition to the national park, but for my students from different regions of Madagascar and myself, it’s become a fond familiar place. I feel happy when I’m recognized and greeted at the local hotely (small Malagasy restaurant) after not being there for a while. It has taken me several attempts and a lot of laughs to learn how to ask for the dish that I want; sometimes resorting to charades of the animal I’m attempting to eat. The Camp My current research is largely focused on how forests regenerate in fragmented landscapes. The remaining forest surrounding regenerating forest fragments can influence regeneration outcomes directly, since they are the seed sources, but also indirectly, since they host the seed-dispersing species that can bring seeds to the regenerating sites. So, this means I work mostly outside of protected areas and have to cover vast extensions of land to reach the forest fragments; which means lots of hiking. We started the hike on a spicy, bright sunny day and no shade nearby. My Vazaha identity is further reinforced with my REI outfit from head to toe, which contrasts starkly with everyone else’s. I feel over the top when I have to take off my boots to wade through the river while everyone else passes by barefoot or in flipflops flawlessly. I feel even more of a Vazaha when I’m all the way on the back of the group, struggling to carry my backpack under the scorching sun, while men from other villages swiftly pass me by, each carrying four jerry cans of toaka gasy (distilled liqueur artisanally produced in the mountains and sold in the city) for several kilometers.  A rice field looking over Ranomafana
When the sun set, we went to greet the elders of the village. The room was small and smoky and was only lit by the cooking fire in the corner. The floor was covered in palm mats, and the nine of us sat shoulder to shoulder either on the floor, the 10-cm tall stools, or the bed of the elder. I uttered the few words in Malagasy that I know. “Faly mahafantatra anao”: I’m happy to meet you. The rest of the conversation moved by through shadows and faces without me understanding. Kava, our field coordinator, translated to me that they were very happy to have us and to bring work to the village. I was also very happy we could be of help. They brought us voanjobory (a type of round bean that tastes like peanuts) and rice for dinner, and we went to bed. The hike the next day started at the break of dawn on a foggy morning. It was going to be a long day since we needed to hike for 5 hours up the hill and 4 on our way down. As soon as we started the climb, it started pouring. Rainforests have very shallow soils, so once all the soil has been washed out, all you have left is clay. And when it’s raining and with nothing to grab on to, you slide down like a penguin in reverse. But after the miserable clay climb, things got much better. Ancient trees made a roof over our heads, and with the fog and the raindrops falling, it all felt peaceful. We came upon a group of red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) who didn’t seem to be much bothered by us. I love how they jump from tree to tree feet first. In Mexico, where I’m from, all the monkeys swing between branches; it’s all about the arms and the prehensile tails. But here is all about the legs and the feet. They jump speedily from tree to tree, grabbing the trunk between their feet, while they grunt at us like arboreal pigs.  A red-fronted lemur (Eulemur rufifrons) with no fear of humans We finally made it to the plot, and we started preparing the equipment. I pulled out my slingshot to install the climbing system on a tree for the arboreal camera and began shooting. Some of the guides were looking at me, trying to understand what was going on. After a few attempts, I sat down to rest. Kava and one of the guides exchanged some words, and the next thing I knew was that the guide was climbing the tree barefoot and with no equipment, and passed the weight attached to the string to the other side of the branch (essentially what I was trying to do with the slingshot). Once again, the Vazaha with her useless equipment.  The forest of Sakaroa
There is still debate about how all these species went extinct. Through my eyes, it’s just the same old story we continue to live to this day. We find the same pattern all over the world, regardless of culture and time. Mastodons, saber-tooths, and camels became extinct in North America right after the first human settlements. Moas and Thylacines in Oceania. Giant sloths, Glyptodons, and Gomphotheres in South America. Not to mention the thousands of extinctions recorded in Europe, some as recent as last year. So, why would this case be any different? I think it’s important to remember and take the time to grasp what we as a species are capable of. Both the good things and the bad ones. After all, the same pressures that drove those extinctions haven't disappeared. Those of us in cities may not be the ones holding the machete, but we sure are the system that makes it swing. And because we are capable of such massive effects on the planet, I know we are also capable of creating massive good. So, the question for me is not whether we caused those extinctions. The question is, do we have the determination to change? None of this would have been possible without our amazing field team and the landowners who have so kindly opened the doors of their homes to us. Thank you Kava, Prisca, Claude, Nirintsoa, and the thirty-some techs, guides and cooks, whose names deserve more space than a footnote.  The dream team in Ranomafana! Text by Ian Y Chan
I was stationed at Centre ValBio for the majority of my stay, where we traveled to nearby forest patches in various stages of forest regeneration. During our first day at CVB, we went on an amazing tour of the rainforest, where we saw many charismatic lemur species, adorable red-tailed mongooses, and an impressively camouflaged satanic leaf-tailed gecko. I loved visiting the forest and witnessing the amazing biodiversity and vast number of endemic species. In the following days, we also saw a tree boa and a beautiful comet moth around CVB.
After returning to CVB, we embarked on a few lemur following trips, where we followed the Milne-Edward’s sifaka and the red-bellied lemurs. I had a lot of fun observing the lemurs’ behavior and running through the forest trying to follow them. We rounded out our trip by visiting Anja National Park, which was an incredible dry forest with breathtaking mountainous views. It was home to large groups of ring-tailed lemurs and many chameleons of a variety of colors. This was an incredible trip, and I am very grateful to Professor Razafindratsima and Sabine for organizing it. I learned so much, both from exploring the rainforest and from the field team and other researchers at CVB.
Text by Meiya Gujjalu
I was based at La Mananara in central Madagascar, one of our field sites for studying mouse lemurs. The tasks were straightforward—recording habitat measurements, helping trap lemurs, collecting fecal samples—yet in practice, I soon realized that the forest had its own logic. Sudden downpours, vegetation so dense it made the trail almost disappear, and the quick, unpredictable movements of the lemurs turned even simple tasks into lessons in patience and attention. The environment refused to be rushed, and I slowly learned to match its pace. Following mouse lemurs each day drew me into a different way of seeing. Up close, these tiny primates—small enough to fit in my palm—revealed themselves as quiet architects of the forest. They disperse seeds, pollinate flowers, and trace routes through the canopy that stitched the ecosystem together. Feeling the delicate, almost human grip of a lemur’s hand was unexpectedly grounding. It reminded me that even the smallest species hold entire evolutionary histories within them. Watching them navigate branches with effortless precision showed me how each individual contributes to the forest’s balance. The physical challenges of fieldwork—long hikes, slippery trails, dense understory—were real, but what stayed with me was how those challenges reshaped the way I observed. Each measurement became a question about connection; each animal encounter revealed some thread in the forest’s web. Slowly, the work taught me not just to record what I saw, but to understand the relationships beneath it.
Back in Berkeley, I’m now working with Vero to analyze the data for my senior thesis on intraspecific variation in seed dispersal by mouse lemurs. Even within a single species, individuals differ in what they eat, how they move, and how they interact with their environment—and those small differences can ripple outward into patterns of regeneration and forest structure. Fieldwork taught me to pay close attention; lab analysis is teaching me how to interpret that attention with rigor. Together, these experiences are shaping the kind of scientist I hope to become: someone who looks closely, thinks across scales, and remains grounded in ecological context.
I went to Madagascar to study lemurs, but I returned with a deeper understanding of what research can be. Fieldwork humbled me with its blend of challenge and wonder because it showed me how small actions—by lemurs, by ecosystems, by researchers—ripple far beyond themselves. Mouse lemurs, improbable survivors in a rapidly changing landscape, reminded me that good science is not about controlling nature but about learning from it, letting it unsettle you, and allowing those moments to shape better questions and more thoughtful work. I’m deeply grateful to Vero and Professor Razafindratsima for their mentorship and support throughout this project. Their guidance gave me the tools to move through the forest with curiosity rather than certainty, and to see research as a dialogue with the systems we study. The lessons I learned in the field —the patience, the attention to change, the perspective of what matters—will continue to shape the science I hope to pursue for many years to come.  Enjoying camp life with new friends Text by Matthew McGee
The morning starts at 4:30AM when the soft beeping of my watch alarm gently wakes me from whatever malarone-fueled nightmare I was enjoying into the cold dark oblivion of my tent. The temperatures have gotten mercifully warmer since my first trip to site 2 in July, but I’ve grown weak and brittle in my old age, and so I spend the first 15 minutes of the day wriggling around my tent in my sleeping bag like a grub newly exposed to sunlight. Once I’ve finally unearthed myself, it’s time for my two favorite morning activities: trying to jam contacts in my eyes by the light of my headlamp followed by putting on the driest pair of damp pants I have left. It’s the little things that get your day started in the right headspace, you know?  Camp 2
We have three things left to do on our final day of surveys: bird counts and butterfly counts in the early-t0-mid morning, and veg surveys after that. Each transect is 1km long, with eight survey plots placed at each 125m interval, starting at 125m and ending at 1000m. We start our bird and butterfly counts at the 125m plot around 5:45AM. Nothing unusual jumps out bird-wise, just the typical assortment of Souimanga Sunbirds, Tylas Vangas, and Blue Couas, while most of the butterflies don’t seem to be awake yet. Everyone is in a good mood, and we take lots of photos as we continue the surveys, causing the quietest ruckus we can manage. We see a couple of Velvet Asities along the way, but the real highlight of the morning comes early: a striking Madagascar Pygmy Kingfisher at the 250m plot. I almost fall off the giant boulder I’m perched on trying to see it, which greatly amuses my team, who have somehow learned to call me HazMatt despite their otherwise limited grasp of the English language. What we don’t see are the rare and mysterious vanga species that we’ve continually been searching for, which is slightly disappointing given that it’s our last chance at this particular site. Where is my gosh-dang Helmet Vanga?! Shouldn’t climate change have driven it farther up the mountain by now?! We also see very few butterflies—I’ve started to suspect that I’m using a broken methodology, and now I think I need to seriously retool it for next field season.  ABC (always be counting) The sun breaks through the clouds around 7:30am, but it’s raining by the time we start our final survey an hour later. I stubbornly try to wait it out before giving in and putting on my rain gear. The rain stops five minutes later. I chose this life. This was my decision.
We eat a dinner of smoked shrimp and rice—the last dinner we’ll ever eat together, although no one realizes that yet. Heavy rain starts in the middle of the night, and it doesn’t stop until early the next afternoon. We never have a chance to find the nest. It’s a slightly defeated hike in the rain back to Camp Indri, but our mood improves as the sun emerges once again, and we’re looking forward to taking a car back to town the next day instead of desperately clinging to the sides of a motorcycle as the driver hurtles down the mountain. Jao and Lawi head back to their village that afternoon while the rest of us dry our wet clothes in the glorious sunshine. Another day and another session are done. So what stuck with me after just another regular day? It was the second time I had tried butterfly counts in the early morning, after multiple attempts in the late morning and afternoon. My early findings suggested that it was the weather that mattered the most for butterfly sightings and not the time of day, which meant I would need to rethink how I conducted those surveys. I was also becoming more convinced that I needed to take longer survey trips during the next field season—just like my rudimentary attempts to speak Malagasy, I felt that something crucial was being lost in translation by moving so quickly, and that more time would bring deeper understanding.  ASSR in all its glory But the Red-Tailed Newtonia was the major turning point. It taught me an old lesson in a new way, a lesson that’s true for all of fieldwork, but one I had never experienced so intensely as I did in the rainforest: when you have a chance to do something, when you see that opening, you take it immediately and you don't look back. You do not save it for tomorrow. Because tomorrow it's raining. Tomorrow you have to make datasheets. Tomorrow you hear a strange bird singing and it takes you 3 hours to find it. Tomorrow you can’t focus, because you know you’re missing something back home and loneliness clings to you like a leech. Tomorrow you can't walk. Tomorrow you can't eat. Today is the only guarantee you have. I took that lesson to heart, and it changed the rest of my field season.  Text by Anaid Cardenas Navarrete I vividly recall that day in April of 2020, sitting underneath the roosting family of black howler monkeys in the tropical forest of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, when I received a message from my former advisor urging me to halt fieldwork until the public health situation returned to normal. With a heavy heart, I left the field immediately, hoping to return within a matter of weeks or perhaps a couple of months. I even made a promise to the monkeys that I would be back soon—little did I know! During the unexpected break, I had time to write my master's thesis, defend it, apply to graduate programs, and get accepted into Dr. Onja Razafindratsima’s lab at UC Berkeley. This marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life, in a new country and a new research adventure. Two years passed before I finally had the chance to reunite with the monkeys in the summer of 2022, setting up a three-month pilot study for my dissertation research. Then, in 2023, I embarked on my longest field season yet—a year-long data collection journey that was as daunting as it was exciting. As we drove the nearly 1,000 kilometers along the roads that connect Mexico City to Palenque, it felt like returning home after an extended absence. The monkeys
Unfortunately, like most primate species globally, they are endangered due to deforestation and habitat loss resulting from the conversion of tropical forests into cattle pastures and urban centers. The site Mayan ruins of Palenque surrounded by tropical forest. Photo: ACN Palenque, a town perpetually full of tourists drawn to a rich Mayan heritage, has undergone rapid urban and agricultural expansion over the years. Since the 1960s, the implementation of policies by the Mexican government aimed at deforesting the southeastern part of the country for industrial cattle production, significantly diminished the potential habitats for primate populations in the region. Since my initial arrival in 2016, I've witnessed firsthand the detrimental impact of these development practices on the region's native habitat. Thus, my main interests are to understand how black howler monkeys manage to be resilient and to maintain their roles as seed dispersers amidst a rapidly changing landscape. My study sites typically encompass small forest fragments that serve as shelter for these primates and countless small critters within the ever-growing urbanization. This time, however, I’m also collaborating with Dr. Sarie Van Belle, a researcher conducting long-term studies on black howlers, to work within the protected confines of Palenque National Park (PNP)—a vital stronghold of local biodiversity. Biodiviersity of Palenque, ChiapasThe people
Among the people who accompanied me on this journey were Paulina, the eternal optimist; Irais, the tenacious apprentice; Alba, the seasoned field biologist; Erika, the meticulous explorer; Liz, the natural primatologist; Jorge, the embodiment of natural intuition; Nacho, the cheerful go-getter; Ulises, the unwavering wit; Valeria, the stabilizing force; and Dallas, the always-by-my-side. The fieldworkDuring the pilot study in 2022, my team, comprising Paulina and Dallas, and I, ventured into various forest fragments across the transformed landscape of Palenque, securing permissions from landowners to conduct research on their properties. It was heartening to still be recognized as the biologist "following the monkeys" and to reconnect with the people of Palenque after such a prolonged absence. Their willingness to offer their land and assistance facilitated our surveys, enabling us to identify the groups of black howler monkeys for our research. Over the course of three months, we habituated the unfamiliar groups, experimented with new methodologies, and refined old techniques in preparation for the subsequent data collection phase. Despite the sweltering heat, relentless mosquitoes, and occasional encounters with venomous snakes, we remained optimist as we laid the groundwork for what was coming ahead. In May 2023, I returned to Palenque after being away for nine months. This time, I was accompanied by Irais, Erika, Alba, Jorge, and Liz, with whom we formed two field teams during the first five months of research. Later, Nacho, Ulises, and Valeria, joined me for the long final stretch of the project. Due to the harsh conditions of the highly degraded forest fragments, camping at the sites was neither safe nor logistically feasible. Thus, we all cramped in an apartment in the town of Palenque—our temporary base camp.
The reason to continue... While it is a privilege to observe primates in the wild, I found myself reflecting on their survival amidst disturbed sites on many days spent under the sleeping groups. It is becoming increasingly clear that the high rates of deforestation, site isolation, river pollution, road noise, and presence of domestic animals—all consequences of human activities—continue to escalate. It is sad and a reminder of the gravity of the situation when we observe monkeys caught in the crossfire of human activity, struggling to survive on plantations and navigating treacherous highways. It is my hope that my study will contribute to a greater understanding of the importance of respecting and protecting black howler monkeys and their habitat in an area that relies so heavily on them.  Me, observing the monkeys in the beautiful protected forest of Palenque National Park. Photo: Ignacio Guzmán |
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