Marnie Chesterton

Wow.

Nature's cleaners.

Now, I want you to tell us about a place in Mozambique called Mount Mabu that you've done a lot of work.

Can you describe it to our listeners?

Mount Mabu is located in northern Mozambique.

The landscape itself, it's lowland savannah and the mountain is like an island in the middle of savannah.

A lot of animals and plants that live in there are uniquely evolved because the mountain was isolated for a long time.

So we call it Sky Island because, as I said, northern Mozambique is pretty much lowland savanna.

And having that mountain in the middle of savanna is like an island in the middle of the sky.

That's why it's called Sky Island.

OK, so when did you first get to go to Sky Island?

When I heard about Marble.

It was pretty much in 2008.

I was doing my undergrad.

They discovered new species of plants and animals in Mount Marble.

In my mind that time, I thought the era of discovery is gone.

And when I read about that, I was surprised.

Like, wow, they're still discovering things now.

And then they were talking about snakes, reptiles, small mammals.

So since I was always fascinated about insects, I asked myself, and what about insects in there?