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So today I had the pleasure of talking to José Carlos Brite.

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He is one of the most experienced few people I know.

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He has driven all across the Sahara and the Sahel, chasing very unlikely animals, crocodiles,

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among many other things.

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I think you have done over 700 days in the Sahara and the Sahel, tracking?

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Over 1000.

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Over 1000 now, okay.

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Well, your bio is a little bit behind.

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But with over 100 side-to-be papers on those topics.

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And you were funded by the National Science Foundation in Portugal, but also ISAN, I saw,

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and National Geographic.

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Yes.

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And you lean in National Geographic covered, of course, with your work.

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So why are you going back all the time to the Sahara and the Sahel that brings you there?

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Well, first of all, thank you very much for this invitation, Harry.

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And well, why go to the deserts multiple times?

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Well, the first time I went to the desert, that caused me a huge impression.

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There's this saying that you can never be insensitive to the desert, but either you love

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it or you hate it.

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And in my case, I loved it.

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The wide open spaces, almost no limits, and that caused a sensation that I want to work

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here.

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I first visited the Sahara, I was doing the PhD at the time in Portugal, in a mountain

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area, and I was spending most of the days in a very narrow valley that I could only

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see something 100 meters in distance.

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How going to the Sahara, it was all, this is the wide open spaces.

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I want to work here.

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And as soon as I finished the PhD, I engaged in researching in deserts.

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So for me, the biggest attraction is indeed the wideness of the lands.

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And you go in deep because you go for months at a time.

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You leave here, we see you drive off with the four wheel drives, and then you don't

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return for several months.

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So what's that like?

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What's it like living out of a car for such a long time?

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Well, it's a challenge, first of all.

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It's a challenge because the logistics, it's complicated in terms of lodging, of food,

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of water, of fuel.

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There are several logistics challenges to be overcome in this kind of expeditions.

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And that is very attractive at the same time.

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The fact that it's complicated, that it's not easy, that there are many variables, many

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uncertainties, and also another thing that you need to plan in advance, that you cannot

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just fly somewhere and just land and ride the car and then you're done.

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And being exactly the opposite makes it very attractive for me.

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Okay.

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You like the challenge and just have your flight metler.

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And so practical things, you probably camp a lot outside or...

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Depends on the countries that we visit, but most of the work that I've done in North Africa

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has been in Mauritania.

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And the lodging is almost non-existent or only in the main cities.

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If you want to do research, if you want to search for animals at night in mountains,

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there is absolutely no other possibility besides camping.

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It's not even a question of I prefer to camp instead of being in a hotel.

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There is no other possibility besides camping.

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Mauritania is one of the more challenging countries in Sahara ideas.

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The countries evoke two and a half times the size of press.

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And for the walk time, it contains only three paved roads.

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I've had enough of those walls.

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In fact, as soon as you enter the country by road, you would immediately eat it if it

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finished the paved road.

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As soon as you enter the country by road, you would immediately eat it if it finished the

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paved road.

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It was very interesting.

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And that also reminds me, the first time I've been there, of course, that caused a huge

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impact because I already had some experience in Morocco.

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And in Morocco, outside the paved roads, the tracks are marked either with cars, left by

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cars, abandoned cars, and Morocco is rather stony.

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So in fact, most of the people tend to drive more or less in the same way, they have the

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same track.

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So when I first arrived to Mauritania, at the border, I was inquiring local people that

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hey, so the tracks here are well marked, like in Morocco, is it easy to find the routes

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and so on?

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And this guy said to me, no, you do your own route.

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And that for me was odd.

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This is marvellous.

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Yeah, I already made that, I tend to have that in that little room.

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Not marked, you have to find, you have to...

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Of course, now we can benefit a lot from GPS's and the technology associated.

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But still, still, it's a challenge because you may have points in the GPS separated by

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50 kilometres and you have to find your way, navigate between dunes or rocks or whatever

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and find your own way.

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Wow.

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So it's really a weird country, Mauritania.

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A factor.

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So I said in the introduction you were chasing crocodiles, which seems like an unlikely thing

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to do in a desert.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that?

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Yeah, in fact, it's first in making the occurrence of crocodiles in the sand because it's an

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aquatic animal, we are not expecting it to be present in the desert.

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In fact, they aren't there and they are remnants of the past of a period during the Ollocene

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about 4,000 years ago when the Sahara was much more humid and covered by grasslands

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and lush vegetation.

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At the time it contained also apoptomers, lions, giraffes, elephants.

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And so afterwards, after this period of the Vin Sahara, for the present day, there was

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an increase in the aridity, so vegetation disappeared.

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Most of the mammals got extinct by themselves.

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And crocodiles were able to thrive in very small bamboo woods located in mountains.

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And so they began highly isolated in the mountains of the Sahara.

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With a human increase of human activities, unfortunately, they were shot because there

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were of course conflicts, and they got extinct from most of the Sahara.

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And presently they subsist only in one single population in Chad and in several populations

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in Mauritania.

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And you've been there in Chad and Mauritania?

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In Chad, unfortunately, I've been in Chad, but not in the place where in the mountains

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where there is an isolated population.

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Unfortunately, I was never there.

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But in Mauritania, yes, and when we started working there, crocodiles were known from

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some 20, about some 20 locations.

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Now we've passed 120 locations.

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So in fact, they are much more common than what was previously thought.

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And this is a separate species of crocodile?

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These are the normal...

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In fact, when we started working, it was considered this crocodile to be Crocodilotica, the Nile

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crocodile, the amphico crocodile that we all know, that caused these problems with, well,

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the attack humans, of course.

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But then some genetic work was led by a team from the US, and they proved that these crocodiles

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in the Sahara, in fact, it's a separate species.

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It's a Crocodylus suchus, and the common name now, it's the West African crocodile.

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And it's much smaller.

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And at the same time, it displays a very interesting depth.

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It's very shy.

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Completely different from the Nile crocodile, yes, no problems.

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And the breast is shy, a newt, not shy at all.

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This one is very shy.

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Possibly this has been a key to survive in environments that are affected by human activities,

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because we think of deserts as places where there are no humans.

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Or in other words, in deserts, humans are only present where there is water.

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Yes, it's a key factor also for us.

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And so this creates immediately a conflict about the water usage in these lagoons between

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humans and crocodiles.

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And so the fact that these crocodiles are much more shy and don't attack humans, in

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fact, it made possible their survival until the present.

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In fact, that reminds me of another detail, that these crocodiles are the ones that were,

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this has been proved genetically, are the ones that have been modified by the ancient

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pharaohs of Egypt.

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Well, they were used on these species of crocodile, not the Nile crocodile.

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They were aspect, they were used in gardens, and then even mummified them, because they

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thought that they were so big creatures and so on, mainly because they were shy.

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Excytope, that's an old...

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I've never seen it live by my own, but I've seen a video of a young kid in Burkina Faso,

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seated on top of one of these crocodiles, like Latifik was a bunch.

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Okay.

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And in some villages, crocodiles are kept as pets, and they are fed by the local villagers

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with chickens and so on, because they think that it's a sacred animal.

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And so this allows a peaceful play of this.

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Lucky crocodile.

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Yes.

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Sacred as it can be.

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It's a sacred animal.

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Amazing.

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So I remember you told me a story from Mauritania.

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I'm not sure you want to tell the story here, but it was about a French person that you

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found by the side of the road.

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Do you remember that one?

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By the side of the road with the kind of broken down?

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No, I mean, he was lost for a long time, apparently, this kind.

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Ah, well, he was not alive.

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That dark, dark, dark, with the sea grass.

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Yes.

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And, well, deserts are harsh environments and they are very remote.

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And some areas, if you venture alone in a vehicle, if the vehicle breaks down, in fact,

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that causes a survival situation.

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So while we were driving through one of these remote areas, I saw at a distance some bones,

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and it's very difficult to find the bones of all the dromedaries.

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So it's very, very difficult.

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And it was a very open, a very open landscape.

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So of course, there is nothing in the landscape.

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You see some bones at a distance.

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And I drove close to those bones.

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When I was about to arrive there, I thought I had understood that it was a human skeleton.

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So we stopped and we went to check it out.

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I took the GPS coordinates and then sent a mate of those coordinates to the authorities

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in Mauritania.

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Later on, they went there to investigate what was going on.

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They found a second body, an old, and yes, it was a man and a woman.

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They found the bags, their bags, okay, with the passports.

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And there were a couple of French that disappeared in 1994.

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And we found them in 2008.

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Wow.

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Okay.

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So they'd be lying there for 14 years undiscovered in the middle of Mauritania.

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Yes.

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That's how long you can...

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Yes.

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With the clothes all stripped apart, all the bits of the remains of the clothes.

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And then the body, the skeleton fully exposed to the elements.

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The second one, the woman, we did not spot it immediately.

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Yes, we did not touch anything.

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But it was recovered with sand.

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Okay.

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It was recovered.

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And then the dove is in very intense...

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Make you a bit more nervous about the state of your car when you're driving, I guess.

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Yes, it came out of her...

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So yes, there are a series of issues related to the vehicles.

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Of course, you want a single vehicle.

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You don't want the vehicle with electronics.

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Essentially, it's almost a paradox, but the vehicles that are available presently and

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that they are produced presently are totally unsuitable for driving in the high-speed.

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Because of electronics, because of sensors, because all the wiring that is attached to

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the different parts.

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And then with vehicles these days, if there is a tiny breakdown in the sensor, immediately

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or according to some vehicles, the car will stop.

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So this is not acceptable for us.

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Right.

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In fact, we use all the vehicles without minimum electronics, vehicles from up to the early

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1990s.

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We don't drop anything.

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More recent than they can solve.

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They get more hard to find, I mean.

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Yes.

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I guess we've had a series of breakdowns, of course.

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But luckily, in all situations, either we were able to solve the problem by our own or

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within a reasonable amount of time someone else passed with a vehicle and helped solving

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the problem.

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Okay.

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So there is some traffic.

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There is some traffic.

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We've been in two areas where there was absolutely no traffic, but in those cases, we always

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go with two cars.

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Okay.

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When it's really remote, we take always a minimum of two cars exactly because of these

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issues and for certain reasons.

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That seems sensible.

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I just back that here.

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Have you ever had a situation where you thought, I'm not going to get out of this?

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Yes.

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But in Morocco, some five or six kilometers from the village, it dropped its life, you

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learn.

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And it was a depression, a saline depression in the landscape.

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And I thought that it was dry.

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It was dry, but it wasn't.

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And we took 36 hours to take the car out.

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It took 36 hours with the help of Moroccans to push, dig, push, dig.

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And I thought, like a dirt track went there.

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It was what some...

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We were almost exiting the lagoon.

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Almost.

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We were like some 70, 80 meters from the shore of the lagoon.

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And then the dirt track came to the shore and then he set up a series of slings to push

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the cart, but they were all in...

241
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He kept on breaking and then also a lot of things deflated and they covered the cart.

242
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Wow.

243
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Six hours to cover 72 meters.

244
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Yes.

245
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It's directly in the wild.

246
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I'll get it.

247
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:47,320
And so you go chasing crocodiles, snakes, lizards, anything else.

248
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What's the most exciting thing you've seen?

249
00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:52,280
What is your favorite thing you've seen there?

250
00:15:52,280 --> 00:15:57,200
Well, the research I started there working inside, mostly with lizards.

251
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Then the research expanded also to the crocodiles.

252
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:06,320
And in the last years, we've been working also with mammals, with birds, even the dragonflies

253
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at the same time.

254
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:11,600
So the research broadened as usual.

255
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,320
The more time we spent on this stuff, the earlier the research always broadens.

256
00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:18,320
So in terms of the most exciting...

257
00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:19,600
Well, I'm biased, of course.

258
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I like a lot of crocodiles.

259
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And I think that they are an amazing animal.

260
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:30,720
Of course, the vipers are also very attractive.

261
00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:37,760
And I remember one of the first time I've seen a puff feather, which is one of the biggest

262
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vipers of Africa.

263
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And it's a paradox again, because it's one of the biggest, but I didn't saw it.

264
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I was walking in a very open light seat, I never crossed my mind that it could be a place

265
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for puff feathers.

266
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And then there are these series of rocks.

267
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I was wearing sandals at the back.

268
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It was very light, so it was very safe to walk around in the light.

269
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But very fast, right?

270
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And I was searching for lizards, geckos, nothing.

271
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Never crossed my mind about the possibility of another.

272
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And I stepped some 20 centimeters from the head of the animal.

273
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When I slowly, I had a secretive effect.

274
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He had a red brace all over his head, and grew his breath like a goose.

275
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And look what he did.

276
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He had a red button in his head.

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I never stepped more, and I would have stepped on his head, which possibly would not have

278
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ended up well.

279
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:42,760
Now, oh my God, so this is the snake that kills most people in Africa.

280
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:45,760
Yeah, it's very, look, certainly anonymous.

281
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And that you're far away from the hospital, I guess.

282
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That's even worse.

283
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:49,520
It is very big.

284
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:50,520
Yes, yes, yes.

285
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:55,640
So medical facilities are always sparse, and the time.

286
00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:58,000
We've had it for the CIVD.

287
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:02,600
One of the trips to Aritaneu, we've had one of the team members that was beaten not by

288
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a viper, but by another snake.

289
00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:08,120
It's a burrowing viper.

290
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They are nocturnal, and well, it was by accident, as usual, and things always happen by accident.

291
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:25,600
And he took, at the time, we were some, I don't know, what, 70, 80 kilometers from the

292
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:29,800
closest city, but it would take some two days to get there.

293
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:30,800
That's it.

294
00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:36,320
Because, you know, in the mountains, and the very complicated roads.

295
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:40,200
And so we had some stress there.

296
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:42,400
Fortunately everything ended up to well.

297
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:47,040
There was no problem, but it was a very scary one.

298
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:51,480
Yeah, and did the person have any effects?

299
00:18:51,480 --> 00:18:52,480
I guess, yes, yes.

300
00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:57,200
And there was a huge smoldering in the hand and the arm.

301
00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:01,240
And he vomited, released all body fluids.

302
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:07,560
And for some two hours we were seeing the clinic-proof situation being more and more

303
00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:08,560
severe.

304
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:09,560
And then it stabilized.

305
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:15,640
Okay, and then fortunately it stabilized, and then he put some three days or so for

306
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:17,680
him to recover.

307
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:19,920
And we camped there for three days.

308
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:22,360
Yeah, yeah, for him to recover.

309
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:24,720
It was a wild treaty.

310
00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:27,600
That is a terrible situation, you hear that?

311
00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:28,600
But you've never been bitten?

312
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:29,600
We, no, no.

313
00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:37,360
We were all night with scorpions, always wearing a fashion, always wearing gloves, always at

314
00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:39,400
night wearing boots for sampling.

315
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:40,880
It's very important.

316
00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:46,800
But I think that the most important trick is always to look carefully where he's stuck

317
00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:49,520
and worn and ready to touch with the head.

318
00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:55,720
Any word you just told me reminded me, and it's so funny in the field, you said the

319
00:19:55,720 --> 00:20:01,400
viper, you only noticed that and you're like, it's funny how animals are not there until

320
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:02,400
they're in there.

321
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:05,400
Very clearly true, true.

322
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,200
Especially these vipers have an amazing camouflage pattern.

323
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:13,760
They rely on camouflage to facilitate from predators, most of all, and also for not being

324
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:18,440
detected from the prey or by the prey, sorry.

325
00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,480
And so neither, neither, neither.

326
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,200
I was not expecting to see vipers there.

327
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:33,800
But honestly, even if I was sampling for vipers, the camouflage was so perfect.

328
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:40,360
The whole body, it was mixed with the terrain, with the soil.

329
00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:47,140
You could not see exactly where the animal landed and where the soil started.

330
00:20:47,140 --> 00:20:50,400
So yeah, you have to be very careful with those.

331
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,480
And so that's hard to imagine, you see them in a zoo or in a captive situation that they

332
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:57,640
can blend in so incredibly well, right?

333
00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:02,840
Yes in zoos usually they are in, well, in modern zoos they tend to reproduce a little

334
00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,800
bit the conditions of the habitats where species occur.

335
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,520
So it's a bit more realistic, let's say.

336
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:17,840
But still it's a huge difference between seeing them in the zoo or indoor.

337
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:23,800
And so what do you do with your months in an amorphous desert?

338
00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:29,240
So most of the work that we were interested in, and we are still interested, basically

339
00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:31,760
it's to identify diversity.

340
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:33,560
How many species are present?

341
00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:39,600
In comparison to other regions of the world, deserts are poorly studied.

342
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:45,320
Usually they have neglected because diversity in the sea would be very low.

343
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:50,820
So usually researchers are not that much interested in looking at deserts.

344
00:21:50,820 --> 00:21:55,480
So we want to know which diversity is there, how many species.

345
00:21:55,480 --> 00:22:02,600
Is there cryptic diversity in the sense that maybe two individuals work alike a lot, but

346
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:05,700
from the genetic point of view maybe they are totally distinct.

347
00:22:05,700 --> 00:22:09,900
So we want to identify what we call cryptic diversity.

348
00:22:09,900 --> 00:22:16,560
And the other aspect is once we know how much diversity is there, where is it distributed?

349
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:22,840
Which are the most richest areas that potentially could be allocated to conservation?

350
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:28,880
And this is the third line of research that I'm interested, using the definition of areas

351
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,240
that can't be allocated for conservation.

352
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:33,800
Right, right, right.

353
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:35,360
And that brought you a lot of places.

354
00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:41,680
You once told the story about you had to haggle with a chief elder to get a skull of a crocodile,

355
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:43,840
is that right?

356
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:52,960
So given that crocodiles, they are sacred of course, but they are also, let me restart.

357
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:57,680
So crocodiles in Mauritania, especially in southern Mauritania, they are located in a

358
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:09,440
transition area between the modern Islamic religion and the African animistic religions.

359
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:17,680
And the animistic religions, crocodiles are seen as sacred, but also as an element that

360
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:22,720
could give power to humans, specifically sexual power.

361
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:29,840
So from time to time they are captured by the local sorcerers that are called the maraboos,

362
00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:35,800
and some organs are sold for mystical reasons.

363
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:40,640
And so we came to know that in one village there was one of these maraboos that contained

364
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,960
some crocodiles there, and we had to negotiate to, but what we were interested was to obtain

365
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,400
a bit of tissue sample.

366
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:52,080
Yeah, we want tissue samples to do the genetic work there, to do the laboratory work.

367
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:57,160
And so we did not want the DNA to get in the work by itself, but just a little bit of tissue,

368
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,600
and it was necessary some negotiation.

369
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:04,760
Yeah, I didn't want to reply, I didn't want to say for any other reason, but I think it

370
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,760
was a crab finger.

371
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:08,760
Awesome.

372
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:11,160
So that is those.

373
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:16,120
I know you have a lot more stories in there than you've already told, but we'll keep them

374
00:24:16,120 --> 00:24:17,120
for you next time.

375
00:24:17,120 --> 00:24:18,120
Thank you.

376
00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:19,620
Thanks a lot for coming.

377
00:24:19,620 --> 00:24:23,880
If people want to know more about your research or want to follow you on social media, where

378
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:24,880
should they go?

379
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:32,920
In Facebook you can visit BioDeserts, and in YouTube the same, BioDeserts is the name

380
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:39,440
of the research group that I live in, and you can find this in YouTube and Facebook,

381
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,640
and also we have a website dedicated to it.

382
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:44,480
So just search for BioDeserts.

383
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:47,360
Okay, so thank you very much.

384
00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:48,360
Thanks so much for the invitation.

385
00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:49,240
I'm not raising.