Hello everybody!
Joining me by the campfire today is a wildlife photographer and a newly minted PhD.
Dr. Javier Lobon Rovira has finished his PhD in November and already has a lot of publications
on the evolution, systematics and conservation of lizards, mostly lizards, in Africa and in Madagascar.
But on top of being a very active scientist and active in several conservation projects,
he's also an outstanding wildlife and conservation photographer,
with his stunning photographs appearing in many magazines, including several issues of National Geographic.
Javier, welcome to the podcast.
Hi, thank you very much.
Hey, before we start, congratulations on your PhD of course, very new.
Thank you very much.
It's on Southern African geckos.
Yeah.
So why Southern African geckos? What's so special about them? What brought you to them?
Well, geckos in general, they're amazing.
It's probably one of the most diverse group of lizards all around the world.
And the colonization of Africa or the radiation of geckos in Africa, it's just amazing with huge amounts of morphs,
left strategies and different sort of things that makes this group amazing.
And also in Southern Africa, there is still a huge gap in the knowledge of this group.
So why not work with them definitely?
Right. Yeah, no, I've seen them in South Africa.
The Pachyractylus and all those little ground geckos, they're really quite nice.
So your stories for today, are they from Southern Africa as well?
Or where are you taking us first?
Yeah, I can take you to Angola, what is where I developed my main fieldwork.
And I have some funny stories around there.
So you were in Angola for your PhD doing fieldwork?
Yeah, I've been there like six, seven times.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. So I spent most of my time in the last five years in Angola.
And what were you doing there on this particular occasion?
Well, I was in the coastal region that for me is the most amazing area in Angola.
The good thing in Angola is like you can go from the rainforest in the north to the Namib desert in the south.
And geckos, the Afromonte, Savannah and all the biomes, mainly all the biomes that you can find in Africa,
you can find all together in one country, that for me is one of the most amazing things here from Angola.
Oh, wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, Angola is amazing.
And at the same time is one of the most unexplored countries in Africa.
So everything together makes the perfect combination to do fieldwork.
And yeah, and in this particular occasion, I was in the coastal region that for me is the most amazing part of Angola.
The coastal region is mainly arid.
Yeah.
That goes from coastal Savannah to desert.
And we were working in a place that now is one of our camps based or the meeting point in all our expeditions.
We always finish in that place to sleep for a day or two days to rest a little bit.
That is in the Bengala province.
And we were there at night and joined to find some geckos.
So we, this was the first time that we arrived to that place.
We arrived at night.
And that's quite close to the coast or a little bit more inland?
Yeah, it's quite close to the coast.
And so there it's a little bit Savannah, like so some patches of grass, mostly sand.
Yeah.
It's more arid than Savannah, a little bit more.
You have a little bit of this land tree that is called Senegalian.
There is like a thorn bush more or less.
And it's a place where we found for the first time a genus that we described two years ago.
And then mixed to Angola, that is Bawarius, a super beautiful gecko that was disappeared for hundreds of years.
And we already discovered the species in that particular place.
Wow.
Yeah.
And that was the first time you went there.
Yeah.
Well, they found the gecko before I was there and we went there and we found plenty of them.
So.
Oh, wow.
So it had been lost for a hundred years.
Yeah.
130 years.
And the species was included within the athrogecko genus.
And when we made the genetics, something super cool that we found is that the genus is a species not related with the Afrogecko and no any other mainland Africa geckos.
And it's related with Madagascar species.
So it's, yeah.
That makes no sense.
Wow.
Definitely.
Super freaking cool animal.
And yeah.
Yeah. So not just lost for 130 years, but also completely different thing in Africa.
Yeah.
So, I mean, not, I think not everybody who listens may understand how a gecko can be lost for 130 years.
So, so the point is the, the guys put describe the species.
They fall well, they supposedly found the species with only two individuals that was described in America by a researcher from America and never found the gecko again.
Okay.
For a long time.
It is true that in Angola, after the colonial era, it came to civil war.
Nobody goes there until 2002.
Yeah.
And field work, seriously field work start mostly around the 2010 something like this.
So the species was completely disappeared for a long time.
And when we found them, what we discovered is like this small gecko lives inside the branches that the termites holds that they make inside the branches and they were living inside there.
Oh, right.
So what, what our hypothesis is like the guy school phones the geckos for first time.
Yeah.
They were just chopping trees to make a fire and and the gecko show up.
Wow.
Yeah.
And after that, nobody was doing that presumably and then if you don't, so you don't, if you don't break the bushes, you don't find the geckos essentially.
Well, we found it in a different way, but but yeah, and and and the interesting thing of this part is like now we're funding the species everywhere in the Costa region everywhere.
And right now I could say that is one of the most abundant species in Angola.
So yeah, it's it's it's yeah, it's no sense at all.
So you just needed to know where to look for them essentially.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. And well, if you have some experience looking for geckos and and and so on, you probably will find them easily.
But if you are not focused in finding geckos and in the particular place, it could be lost for another 100 years.
And did you realize it at the time where you're there and you're just walking around seeing a gecko and then like realizing that this one has been lost for a long time?
Yeah.
And so when my colleague because this was a phone by a first time by Petro Vespinto and there is another colleague from Angola and Portugal.
And when they found it at right at the moment, they say, OK, I think this is the gecko that was lost for a very, very long time.
And then when we explore more in detail, definitely it was the gecko and.
Yeah, it's super, super cool.
It must have been very excited for you as a PhD student at the time.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, because I have two main focus or two main back at the species.
Oh, when I started working on that was first the colicanos and the xanandemic species from Angola with a feather tail gecko that is just beautiful.
And the other one is this species and now I have seen them plenty and then several times and we discovered a new species of colicanos as well.
So yeah, yeah.
And these two findings are part of my PhD.
So yeah, super happy.
Yeah, no, I remember the feather tail gecko paper.
Yeah, yeah, beautiful animals.
Yeah, and your photos of them.
Yeah, yeah, did you see the photos of those animals?
They're beautiful.
Fantastic.
Yeah, I should show them on the video.
Yeah, I'll show them on the video.
Yeah, so if you're listening to this, you want to see them, check out the YouTube video.
Yeah, definitely.
So but the funny story in that place is that when we arrived there the first time looking for beckos, we found like a small mountain of granitic boulders.
So we thought, okay, this is a place, a part of the road so we can hide the car there, sleep there and look for geckos in the small mountain because most of them they like to be climbing in the rocks and so on.
And we were climbing at night the first day.
And I was in the left side, my colleague was in the right side and when I start to climb up, I look with my torch pointing up to the top of the small mountain.
And I see two huge eyes looking at me from the top and a completely shape of a big cat.
It was a big cat.
And I called my colleague and I started to yell at him like, Pedro, here's something, come here.
And I want to start climbing up because indeed I want to see what it was.
And when he started to climb, he called me like Javier, climb down, climb down, did I observe there?
And when I arrived to the bottom, he told me, man, I just found a leopard cage in the small mountain.
Not just any big cat, but a leopard.
It was a leopard.
And from now on, we call that place the leopard cage.
And the day after in the morning, so we went to sleep and the day after in the morning, we climbed up again the mountain to see what is going on.
And we found again this cave with two dead corp porcupines and a skull of a huge leopard dead there.
And a lot of bones of different antelopes and other old things.
I cannot guarantee that the animal that I saw in the top of the mountain was a leopard.
Maybe it was a cataclysm or something, but still I was frightened at the night like, oh my goodness, first time.
Oh no, but it's very likely.
So after you saw the eyes, what happened then?
Did you just say turn around and go back to the tent?
No, no, when I saw the eyes, I want to climb up because I was seeing something like, but I want to see what it was because I thought, okay, maybe this is a cataclysm or a skull or something like this.
So I want to see that animal, you know, because you never think that something that can kill you in three seconds is going to be in the top of your head.
And I just only realized that it could be a leopard when he told me like, I just see a leopard cave like, oh my goodness.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, but yeah, it was beautiful, beautiful experience that I remember every day.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Yeah, so funny.
So did you go back there again ever or was that the only time you went to the leopard cave?
Yeah, every time that we go to the coastal region, so in Angola you have to drive all the way from Luanda.
If you want to go, for example, to Iona Nacional Park, there's an amnesty in the southwest corner of Angola and all this region you have to go through the coast.
And this is like the place that we go to sleep every now and then.
It's our stop.
Still at the leopard cave and just in the tent, I imagine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nearly everything is in a tent in Angola.
But we never seen nothing big around again.
Okay, so it's the one show.
Wow, that must be frightening.
It was frightening at the moment.
Now I remember like a funny story, but at the moment was like, oh my goodness.
Yeah, no, it's not nothing.
I remember just in Morocco walking around at night and then you're looking at small stuff, right?
You're looking for geckos.
I was looking for scorpions and you look up and there's these big green eyes staring at you and you feel pretty alone in the dark there, right?
Definitely.
Well, the first thing that I did was call my friend like, come here, come here.
I'm going to climb up, but come here with me.
Yeah.
But yeah, but you know, in Africa, these things could happen all the time.
Like if you have big, big carnivores and big predators, then there are rounds.
You just have to be careful, be being conscious and and be aware that everything could happen and and be alert.
And that's it.
Wow.
Yeah, that's very cool.
Yeah, big cats are nice.
And did you see the other the other cats like catacombs more often or I have never seen a catacombs in my life.
Never ever.
And I have seen a several only once.
Oh, well, yeah.
And I've been looking for in the Sahara in Morocco and all these areas for for the Sahara cats, the Feliz Margarita.
And likely the cute ones.
I have never seen them.
For me, they are the most beautiful cats in the planet.
Yeah, with the rounded face and the stocky.
And living in the red desert, yeah, just unique animal.
Hard to find, I imagine.
Yeah.
And I see lions, the Leo Pats and cheetahs in other parts of Africa, but no, no in Angola.
In Angola, everything is it's mostly gone.
Okay.
Yeah.
Is that because of the Civil War?
Yeah, they kill everything.
They kill absolutely everything.
They almost extinct the giant sable that is the symbol of the country.
So yeah, they kill absolutely everything.
But now it's recovering slowly.
But yeah, let's see.
Yeah.
So you're also working on the conservation of the giant sable.
At least you're involved in that project, right?
Yeah.
Well, Pedro, that is my colleague from Angola that I do all the field work with him.
I'm the leader of the conservation plan of the giant sable.
So I try to help them when I can.
Mainly taking photos or helping out going there to the fields.
Yeah, your photos are amazing, man.
They're really, I don't know, impactful because of the lighting and the kind of lenses you're using.
It's really striking.
I like that in your top 10 on your website.
And I will I will link to the website with this podcast.
But in your top 10, you have a scorpion there as well.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I think in the top 10, that one is a Buddhist of sepitanus or Ibericus.
I took the photo in Madrid.
So next to my house.
Oh, and that's you don't have to go that far.
Yeah.
That's something that people always tell me like, oh, the police in National Geographic because you go then and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But the 90% of my photos, police in National Geographic are from Spain or Portugal.
So you sometimes just need to keep pushing, pushing and look the the light and look the the frame that you want to to get.
And and and and of course, being lucky because there's 200 million photographers doing incredible work.
And sometimes you just need to be the right police at the right moment.
So does that help for you to be a biologist and a photographer at the same time?
Or is that are these completely different and incompatible incompatible activities in the field?
No, no, no.
Well, for me, what allows me to take more photos and more photos is be biologists and go to the fields frequently and and collaborate with different colleagues working in the multi on mythology and different fields.
So I can I can find different places or cool animals or targets or or or and right important stories that you want to tell.
And because they are working in that and and I can help them to documents their work or whatever.
So so I think if you are not a biologist and you want to do nature photography, you need to be close to a biologist working with your study group.
That's the experience that I have.
Yeah, so it's really just not your own field work, but the fact that you know other biologists that who can give you access or tips or whatever.
Yeah, a different point of view that you will never find it by the wrong probably.
Yeah.
Well, your your gecko example is a good one.
If you don't know where to find that one, you're not going to find it apparently for 130 years.
Yes.
Definitely.
Awesome.
So yeah, what what else adventures did you?
Yeah, I have another story and the Costa Bride in Angola as well.
And I because you've been to lots of places you've been to Madagascar all over South Africa, Southern Africa, but Angola is the place where things happen then.
Yeah, I think it's because I spent more time there.
And I spent a lot of time in the field that allows these things to happen.
Yeah.
I remember one that it was in the in the, it was in Bengal as well.
We were looking for dwarf vipers.
And that they're very common in the South, in the deep South.
But as much north that you move the population decrease significantly.
And we were like in the northern distribution area of the species.
And we were like for three hours to the village in gravel plains with a lot of small rocks and the hand under the rocks.
And we were looking for for this animal for a long time.
So we were looking at night or during the day? How does that work during the day?
Like flipping rocks flipping rocks flipping rocks.
And I was with with again with Pedro and his son looking for for for the vipers.
We were like for three hours looking for them.
Nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
And suddenly I saw Cordillo's autos that is a small lizard with a blue tail.
Beautiful.
Nice.
Extremely fast.
So we I start to chase the animal and I called Pedro and his son like he came here.
There is a cool lizard here. Let's see if we can catch it.
And we were moving around once and again.
And and at the end the animal went under a rock.
And we were okay.
Pedro, you flip the rock and me and Alfonso we catch the animal fast.
And then we were all prepared.
Pedro was about to flip the rock.
He flipped the rock.
And when we were going to put it in the hands, the the small lizard, the color of the little soft hide under a dwarf vipers.
But I saw the animal, but Pedro also he didn't see the vipers and he put the two hands on the top of the vipers.
Like boom.
And he wrapped the vipers and we start to yell him like so fun.
Like no, no, no, no.
And he just threw it.
And he was lucky like hell.
Like oh my goodness.
And he was and he was about 11 years.
So it was also still quite small.
So the venom would have been even worse.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
So we're like whoa.
But he grabbed the viper with the hands like whoa.
And he was lucky that because that that's a that dwarf viper is the biggest of Alice.
They just to bite twice.
So and they bite fast and twice like.
And I don't know how maybe the viper was not even realized what is going on.
Like just turned the rocket up right.
Yeah.
But he was really lucky to get smelt by it and by the.
It's a bad idea to start grabbing at something you haven't seen yet.
Yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely.
That was hilarious.
Like oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Lucky kid because I imagine you were quite far from a hospital or anything like that.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And we were in the ones there were no chances to go to the hospital where we were we were
in the middle of nowhere about five or six hours from the closest hospital.
Okay.
But that one was that would have been bad.
Yeah.
Definitely.
And yeah.
But the one in a goal I was like was a thing like that's a story to tell like oh my goodness.
Yeah.
That would have ended quite badly but you got both the lizard and the snake or.
We wrote balls.
Yeah.
Definitely.
So it ended.
We realized that it was a viper.
We just take the gloves and the tongs.
We take the viper first and then the Lisa then we take some photos on these samples and release
them.
I wasn't important sample.
I imagine the northern part of the range.
Yeah.
It was an important sample.
Definitely.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Yeah.
I always watch where you put your fingers on.
Oh yeah.
No.
No no no.
It's sometimes it's like you are focusing something and you don't realize what you have around.
But yeah.
Well I have I have other stories as well.
I mean in Morocco or something like flipping rocks and suddenly a cobra saw me now or something
like this like a cobra.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Flipping rocks.
Yeah.
The things come out.
Definitely.
They're not happy about it usually.
Oh no.
No at all.
Yeah.
Oh wow.
That's a bit.
Yeah.
I mean sure when you flip rocks and there's something really striking there like you know
that you're on red sand and there's like a black beetle or something that gets your attention
not the sand colored huge scorpion that's sitting next to it.
Definitely.
Oh but talking about the scorpions I remember once that I in a game it was raining like
crazy and we found a peluchius that is a pons turtle at the rugby crossing the road at night
raining like crazy and we stopped the car.
I take the the turtle out of the road I put it on the car and suddenly when I flip the
the turtle it was an scorpion underneath.
Oh.
Like taking a ride.
Really.
And we were cleaning the house.
Cleaning to the belly.
Yeah.
And it was a parabutus.
Oh.
And oh dangerous.
That's a dangerous scorpion.
Yeah.
And we were like looking at the at the doctor like with the hands and and it was like like
taking the ride.
Super happy.
That's straight because normally parabutuses don't cling to the underside of rocks.
They usually more or more digging and.
Yeah.
Must have been the rain.
We must have the.
Yeah.
It was raining like crazy.
Yeah.
But we must have the photo somewhere about the that's a combination between two species.
How did the scorpion cross the road.
Oh yes.
On a turtle.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah.
It was fun.
Cool.
And are you going back to Angola anytime soon.
I don't know yet.
I would like to go maybe next year I'm going to Namibian Angola if I'm lucky.
But yeah.
Let's see what what things brings next year.
Yeah.
But yeah I still have projects in Angola to need to be done.
So.
So will it be geckos or other things geckos and frogs mainly.
Nice.
Yeah.
So we start working in we start working in Cabinda.
There is an Angolan enclave within the two congos the democratic republic of Congo and
Congo-Basabu.
Oh really.
Yeah.
In the in the rainforest is north of Congo river.
And we are going there for first time like doing biodiversity studies after the the
war mainly.
And it's still a little bit complicated.
But now is where we are mostly focused to do the next work and and so on.
But yeah.
There is there is some challenges still in that area.
Yeah.
But it's probably unexplored because of that.
So you might find another very rare gecko or new species like you've done so many times
before.
Yeah.
And I expect to find it is something that I always say when I'm going to the fields
is and people tell me you're not afraid of this or this animal.
And in places like this they think that finding me the most is to find another person.
Because you you never know.
They have like a small war.
They're like not a civil war was like a armed conflict.
And so the last thing that you want to find in the middle of the forest at night is probably
another person.
Yeah.
I have that experience.
Yeah.
It's showing up with Kalashnikov when you're just there with your flashlights.
Yeah.
Please go.
Yeah.
They can be they can be serious.
Yeah.
Well, take care man.
Be careful out there and take some nice pictures for the rest of us.
I will try.
So if people want to see some of your pictures and want to know more about the projects you're
doing where can they go?
Well they can go to my website definitely.
And I try to post on there most of my work.
It is true that the photographic work is not the most updated.
Maybe the most updated go to Instagram or something like this.
Right.
What's your Instagram handle?
Do you know by heart by any chance?
The name.
Do you mean?
Yeah.
It's the same as my name is Javier.
Okay.
And underscore Logan Robira.
So.
Okay.
Perfect.
They can find it.
Go find it.
And the scientific work I try to publish everything on my website but they can find it as well in
the presser gate or whatever they look for.
My name they can find everything that I'm doing.
And if they have any questions I'm always happy to reply the emails or whatever if they
want to reach me out or whatever.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Javier, thank you very much.
Thanks to you for inviting me.
It was wonderful.
Well, your stories are amazing and I hope you come back with more.
Yeah, I can tell you some more stories from Costa Rica and other places where I developed
some work.
I have some funny stories in Costa Rica as well that I can tell you.
Well, well, don't stop now.
Well, I can tell you one if you want.
I remember because I was the one in Costa Rica working with seed orbitals.
Seed orbitals.
Yeah, with leather bags mainly.
This was back in 2016 I guess.
And we used to patrol at night to see if the females are coming out to nest and lay the
eggs and take some measurements and if some nest need to be relocated or so on.
But we used to go in pairs.
So two persons go together because something will happen.
So that's at night, right?
You're walking on the beach at night in the dark.
In the tropical nights in Costa Rica.
Sweet.
Yes.
Yeah.
And there were some stories before I started working there because Costa Rica is beautiful
for many things but in the Caribbean it's like a highway, demanding highway for drives
from South of America to the north.
And many times the dealers go in the coast and they see lights in the beach.
They think there are police or something and they start to shoot without asking.
Right.
So yeah, so that never happened to me but there is a story that they were telling in
their reserve where I was working.
But I remember one night that I was patrolling alone because one of the colleagues was sick
or something happened.
I don't remember what.
And it was raining like so bad.
So bad.
Raining a lot.
Okay.
And I was working at the beach and something started to light.
I didn't know what it was.
And in one second a sun hit the beach like 300 meters or even less.
No, 300 meters.
30 meters away from me.
I get blind.
The sun was like crazy.
Like right next to me like oh my goodness.
I get blind, get served and I run into the rainforest because there is the line of forest
goes next to the beach.
So I was working in the beach.
So I had a little bit there.
It was Friday and like this is if I move here the next one is going to be in my head.
And suddenly two leather bikes came out from the water.
So I thought okay I have to measure these animals.
They cannot escape and maybe something happened.
So I went to measure the animal, take all the values and all the information that we
just record.
When I was with the second one, the second fan, again next to me.
So lightning hitting the beach.
I think so bad, like so bad, like next to me.
And then I'd like say okay I go home and I start running the beach.
I don't want to be here anymore.
That was Friday night.
Wow.
So twice close to you.
Yeah.
But really that never happened to me ever.
Like really next to me.
You get blind in one second and the sounds like extremely are like you are breaking
it into like and I was like oh my goodness.
And I thought okay the storm is passing so I'm going to measure the animals and again.
Oh my god.
Friday night.
It was Friday night.
This is one of the worst experiences that I have in my life, like really frightening.
Really?
Like oh my gosh.
I'm going to die here.
This wasn't bad.
Like really bad because when the light hits the ground, everything trumbles like so bad.
Like earthquake or something like that.
And you get blind.
Everything happening in less than a second.
Yeah.
That must be so loud.
And so were you able to see where the lightning hit?
No.
Was there like any trace?
No.
I'm not even sure if it hits the beach or maybe it was a little bit in the water.
Sorry.
I have no idea.
But really like next to me.
You always think that you know lightning goes for trees or something but it was not all.
And it was coming from the water for sure.
Because the storm was coming from the Caribbean ocean and going inland.
Yeah.
That is pretty frightening.
No, definitely.
There was a experience in my life.
And then when I was patrolling there, you find always things like you are patrolling in that
way and when you go back, you see how our brains in the beach, these sort of things.
That happens frequently.
But you were much more frightened by the lightning than by the jaguars.
Oh yes.
Yes.
Definitely.
I don't know.
The lightning was super scary.
Yeah.
Crazy.
Yeah.
I can just imagine how loud that would must be so close as frightening.
Yeah.
And after that, did you continue with the measuring?
No.
I run away and I hide in the small houses that would have it in the reserve and that
day was enough for me.
Okay.
I'm really here for conservation but I still put my life in the moorish at least tonight.
Maybe tomorrow we will see.
No, not tonight.
Yeah.
Those two data points will have to come some other time.
Oh yeah.
Definitely.
It sounds very cool though measuring leatherback turtles there.
Oh yeah.
This is beautiful experience again.
I've been lacking because I have collaborated some really beautiful projects and this one
was the one that takes me for first time to Costa Rica and there is a place that I love
and the leatherbacks.
You don't realize how big they are and if you have one between your arms.
I think that year we measure and female that it was about 1 meter, 90 something centimeters
of carapace, only carapace.
Yeah.
Huge animal.
Yeah.
Huge animal.
It's taller than I am just a shell.
Yeah.
And how they move in the beach.
Like how it's possible that these animals could take this life and it's really scary
because the beaches in the Caribbean, ocean of Costa Rica, they are disappearing because
the, for example, what happens in the beach that we were that is, I think is the third
more important nesting population in the world.
I think the first is Gabon, then French Guayama and then this one in Costa Rica.
And what it's happened is that they built a huge port in the city of Limón, south of
the Caribbean ocean.
Yeah.
And it seems like they changed a little bit the currents of the sea because of the coastal
line.
Yeah.
And the beach was in Huatroces going to the forest.
So if they lose all the sand needed to nest, the population can disappear.
Oh, wow.
Anything they can do about it?
I'm not sure.
I think there is not too much to be done.
But this, together with the global warming, because I don't know if you know, but the
sex of the sea turtles depends on the temperature of the incubation.
And with the global warming, what we have is more males.
So we have the sea is full of sea of males sea turtles.
And we are losing all the females.
And if we lose the females, we lose the species, definitely.
Yeah.
Sexual temperature dependent sex determination in reptiles is a problem with climate change.
So with your geckos, I imagine.
Yeah.
But it is true that geckos, they used to lie the eggs on the rocks or in the cracks.
So the temperature is more, well, it's used to stay cooler.
Oh, yeah.
It depends on the species, of course.
But it's not as dramatic as it could be with sea turtles because they lie the eggs in the
sand of the beach that is exposed to the, to the, to the, like, the external temperature,
like, right?
100 percent and the heat of the sun every day and so on.
So yeah.
If they need to start laying their eggs a little bit deeper.
Maybe that is the solution or they start to learn how to get into the forest and dial
in the eggs into the forest.
And yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
They never know.
Maybe the combination of things will, will solve it a little bit.
We'll have to see.
Yeah.
Well, as species just what happens to everything, but some others disappear.
So let's see.
Yeah.
Now, they're amazing.
We both, we work in Portugal or we worked in Portugal.
Yeah.
And actually on the beach there, I once had a leatherback washing up a dead one, but
it shows you how far they get.
Yeah.
Well, they are, they are everywhere.
Absolutely everywhere.
Occasionally, even in the North Sea here.
Yeah.
No, definitely.
These animals and, and well, this is fascinating because when they were, they stay in the deep
sea for over, I think it's around 30 years to get maturity and, and we reproduce at this.
So yeah, this is amazing animals.
Yeah.
Definitely.
It's time to grow if you just eat jellyfish, right?
Yeah.
Definitely.
Not good, not good food.
Yeah.
All right.
That was amazing.
Yeah.
I just see lightning that, that close twice in a row.
Yeah.
Have you running back?
Definitely.
Yeah.
No, this year.
So be careful out there.
Thanks again for being on.
And Javier, yeah, people should go and look at your photos because they are gorgeous and
they really show the animals in such an amazing light.
It's, it's really worthwhile finding Javier's website and going to have a look at it.
Thanks.
Thank you very much, Arie.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye.