In this episode of the Zoologist's Campfire, I have the opportunity to speak with Dr.
Anthony Herrell.
Anthony is a permanent researcher at the French CNRS and he works at the Muséum Nationale
de Histoire Naturelle in Paris, where he heads the FunEvol group.
The FUN in FunEvol stands for functional.
He is also associated with the universities of Ghent and Antwerp in Belgium and Bern in
Switzerland.
And whenever I try to email him, I always get a reply from some exotic corner of the
world.
So suffice it to say that Anthony moves around a lot.
In all these places, he studies the evolution of complex and integrated musculoskeletal
systems.
He has published more than 500 scientific articles in many books on a range of organisms
from fruit flies, fish, snakes, turtles, birds, cuttlefish, to various mammals like primates,
rodents, bats.
But his favorite subjects are lizards.
Anthony, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much.
Good to have you finally in front of the camera, just trying to get a hold of you.
You were in the US, you were in Fringe Guiana, and you're always moving around.
Absolutely.
And chasing lizards again, I imagine.
Chasing lizards, working on mammals, doing dissections.
So yeah, many different reasons to go different places.
Filming salamanders recently as well.
Oh, salamanders.
Where were you?
We were in the United States with a colleague of mine, Ron Bonnet, to film cave salamanders
from the Ozarks, and so really cool.
Yes.
Awesome.
You also have hellbenders there, right, in the Ozarks?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, awesome.
So plenty to choose from, I imagine, with adventures.
Where will you take us first?
Which stories did you have in mind?
So for my first story, which I think is still one of my, probably one of my favorite stories
about kind of the fields and kind of adventures in the field, took place in Gabon.
Oh, oh, nice place to go.
So I was looking up a long time ago, I think we went in 2000, so 24 years ago, with a colleague
of mine, Dominique Adriaens, from the University of Ghent.
We had organized an expedition to Gabon.
He had some contacts there to find fish, catfish.
Okay.
And he was very interested in the evolution of these really elongated catfish that are
different from your typical catfish.
And so these things actually go on land.
We had some interesting results off of the studies where we see these animals actually
capturing prey on land.
And so this became a little highlight of that study.
However, to get the fish, which were not available in any aquarium trade, go to the field and
actually find them.
Yeah.
So you have them in an aquarium and they can go on land.
That's a bad combination.
Yes.
But it was a really cool kind of discovery that way.
Yes.
So we finally make it out to Gabon, direct flight from through Paris to Gabon.
So we get there.
First thing we have to do is get a vehicle.
We were lucky enough that our American colleagues were friendly enough to allow us to use their
vehicle for which we had to get insurance and everything.
So we spent a day or two getting everything organized before heading all the way north
in Gabon, close to the Cameroonian border in a village called Makoku.
This is seriously middle of Africa as tropical as it gets.
Middle of Africa, tropical rainforests.
I mean, it is one of the most remote places I think I've been.
Really far from everything.
And people there are incredibly friendly.
But most of the villages we were had rarely or ever seen a white person like me.
So this was kind of a very unusual kind of scenario.
So before we were able to get out into the field, we're driving around town, pick up
the vehicle, get the insurance, everything ready.
And of course we get stopped by the local cops.
We just followed everybody else doing a left turn at an intersection.
But of course we were not allowed to do this kind of left turn to the intersection.
And after a lot of hassling, Dominique talks to the cop and he says like, the cop had said
like, okay, we're going to confiscate your vehicle.
You can't leave to the field and everything.
So Dominique says like, oh, okay.
So do we have to pay a fine?
And the guy was like, yes, you have to pay fine.
And Dominique says, can we pay the fine right now?
And he said, sure, 300 CFA.
And so that was done with over with.
We were relieved that we could actually just pay a little bribe and head off the next morning.
And so this is also part of doing fieldwork in different areas where you get confronted
with different types of the way administration works.
So we make it out to the field and we were very lucky.
We actually get our catfish.
So we go all the way to North to Makoko.
Then we got all the way East to go on to O'Yam to find different species of these kinds of
cats.
And you do this, you bring nets and you just walk into river.
We try to catch more cells.
Obviously we have no luck whatsoever.
So we go to villages, we ask local people to help us.
And the fishermen, local fishermen are very good.
They know these animals.
But of course, because these villages are extremely isolated, so we learned the local
word for these fish.
Like in Makoko, it was in Ndaga.
We moved like 20 kilometers further and then the name changed and nobody knew what we're
talking about.
So we had pictures of the fish and then we showed them and they obviously recognized
them.
They're very good at showing us and helping us capture these fish.
We also captured a whole suite of other fish, a bunch of more married fish, which are really
interesting that live there.
With the long nose and the electric organs.
So it was a very interesting trip.
We got to see a lot of the local wildlife as well.
We ate a lot of bush meat.
Some of which I prefer not to eat, but you have no choice.
One of the villages, one of the local guys came up to us with a bucket full of caterpillars,
which was considered a local snack.
Lovely.
Which of course we had to try.
And so that was also part of the experience.
Is that the weirdest thing you've eaten?
I've eaten a lot of weird things.
I'm always happy to try things once.
The problem with these caterpillars was that they were urticating.
So it's not pleasant.
After one, no thank you.
I will leave the delicious caterpillars.
Yeah.
But yeah, so a lot of interesting things.
We got to catch fish.
We have live animals with us that we're going to go and take back to Belgium.
And on our way back, we go to redrive from France Ville, which is in the Savannah area
in the Southeast of Gabon.
And of course there's no hard roads.
It's all like dirt roads.
It's all hard getting through.
We have our fish.
We're really happy.
And so we drive to the Lope Reserve.
And the Lope is one of the biggest national parks in Gabon, which is an amazing diversity.
It's a really great place to see gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, and all kinds
of other things.
Wow.
And so we're like happy.
We take a break and we're like, we're going to go with a guide into the forest and see
some of this diversity.
And so we're in the forest and we're looking for animals.
And all of a sudden our guide is like, oh, look, elephants.
And so there's a forest elephant.
Like maybe, I'm getting old.
My memory is not good anymore.
But I would say the elephant was maybe five to 10 meters away from us, pretty close in
the forest.
That's very close.
Yeah.
And we could see it really well.
And so we're taking pictures and we're taking some film and video camera.
And so we're really excited about this.
And all of a sudden our guides, he used to be a hunter actually.
And so a lot of the hunters converted to guides to become ecotourism and get a small income.
And so he's like, oh, there's a little elephant.
So we see the baby next to the mother.
And so we could see that the guide was starting to get a little anxious and nervous.
And so he kind of looks at us and he's like looking at the elephant, he looks at us and
the elephant all of a sudden starts to bring the ears forward.
Oh, right.
She starts to trumpet, which is an amazing sound.
If you've never experienced it close up, it's pretty impressive.
I can imagine.
So our guide looks at us and so there's me, Dominique, one of Dominique's former PhD
students and a guy from the capital, from the office of fisheries, who had never been
in the forest before.
There's four of us there and the guide and the guide said, when I say run, and he starts
running.
The moment he starts running, the elephant is charging us.
And so we're on foot in the middle of the rainforest with a guide running away as fast
as he can.
And so we're just basically running after the guide as fast as we can.
And so, I mean, people that haven't been in like tropical central African rainforest,
it's probably the densest rainforest with the most undergrowth.
So you can run really.
So the only thing you can do is follow an elephant trail.
And so the guide is on an elephant trail and he follows the elephant trail and we just
kind of follow the guide.
And it feels like forever.
And all of a sudden our guide stops.
And so we all stop and we look around and somebody's missing.
Oh, Dominique is no longer there.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
And so the guide is like, oh, man, where is your friend Dominique and everything.
And so we're like, yeah, we don't know.
We thought we were all here.
And he's like, yeah, I mean, it's going to be complicated because it's very dangerous.
If he starts walking into the forest, the guide is like, I may never find it again.
Like this is like serious.
And so we're debating for a little bit and maybe five minutes.
And then all of a sudden we hear a tiny sound and the elephant is like two meters away from
us and charges again.
Oh, God.
We run literally for our lives.
Yeah, obviously.
And it's probably the only time that I thought, okay, I'm going to die.
It's okay.
It's fine.
An amazing way to die anyway.
It is.
Yeah.
So and again, like this is a non-nagligible.
There are a lot of accidents with elephants in Africa.
And unfortunately, quite a few herpetologists have been killed by elephants in the past
10 years.
So it does happen.
So we run as fast as we can.
We follow our guide.
And so we run, run, run, run, run until we get to river.
We jump in the river, cross the river.
We swim across the other side.
And then the guide is like, okay, so the elephant is not going to follow us because if she crosses
the river, she's too far away from me.
I see.
And so we're safe here.
And so we're still having the problem that Dominique is gone.
Yes.
And so the guide is like, I have to go back as soon as possible, find Dominique.
Again, if he moves, I'm never going to find him again.
Like we're, I mean, we're a significant distance away from where we initially saw the elephants.
And so the guide is like, okay, guys, you just stay here.
And he's like, if there's another elephant coming, and we're all like, he's like, he's
going to these big trees with these big root systems.
He's like, crawl in between the roots.
The elephants are going to get to you.
They will stay around for 24, 48 hours, but just wait, they will go away.
As he walks away back across the river, he's like, just be careful with the poisonous snakes.
Yeah, of course.
I won't talk for that.
And so we were really, I mean, we never experienced anything like this, even though I had never
experienced anything like this before.
So we're like on edge.
Yeah.
And you could have lost your friend back there.
And so the guide is going back, finding Dominique.
And so we're waiting there, waiting there, waiting there, like the PhD students, Stan,
who was with us, like he was not happy.
That was the last time he ever did fieldwork in Gabon.
Our guide from the capital, he was also not happy because this is not what he signed up
for.
But we have to wait.
We have no way to get out of the forest.
So we just wait.
And so it's funny because I'm just, you see me filming, I'm filming some frogs.
Okay.
A big fruit falling, which makes noise.
And you can see my camera jump up.
I'm also not relaxed.
I'm not at ease.
And so like 25, 30, maybe 40 minutes later, the guide comes back and he had found Dominique.
Okay.
Thank you.
Well, yes.
Fortunately, he had the instinct.
So he thought that he saw the guide say like, make a movement, like go to the right.
And he followed a little trail.
Good thing is the elephant actually followed us, the three of us and not Dominique.
Dominique.
He didn't see us anymore.
Didn't hear the elephant.
He stopped and he climbed a small tree.
Good idea.
And he waited in the tree and started singing Arnaud songs, which was the song we hadn't
been playing on the radio for a long time.
And actually the guide heard him and so found him and actually was able to retrieve them.
Yes.
Because people underestimate how easy you can get lost in a forest with a thick undergrowth.
Absolutely.
And no GPS at the time.
So there is no way.
And even with GPS, I mean, I have another story from Kenya where we got lost in the
mountain because we couldn't get GPS reception because the canopy was so thick.
Even on top of the mountain we had zero GPS reception.
Very frustrating.
Yeah.
Frustrating.
And then we almost fell off a cliff.
But it's another story.
You know, I know Dominique, so I knew he survived, but oh my God.
And so then we had to get out of the forest.
And so the guide is like, okay, there's two options or we can take the long way around
or we can take the shortcut and just get out of the forest.
So I think all of us, we had enough of our little forest experience.
And we said, okay, let's take the shortcut.
And so we walk into the forest and all of a sudden we come across some gorilla nests,
fresh.
And so the guide is like, oh, gorilla nests.
You guys want to go find the gorillas?
And we're all like, no.
Too much emotion for one day.
And the guide is like, oh, but the gorillas won't kill you.
They will just stop right in front of you.
And so we're just like, no, let's just go back.
Can we first change our underwear, please?
Yeah, pretty much.
So it was a very kind of, it was super cool to see these gorilla nests and everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you didn't see any gorillas.
We didn't see the gorillas.
And then like a couple, like an hour later, we had to cross an assault lake where there's
a lot of elephants.
There's actually like a BBC documentary where they're filming elephants in Gabon.
And it's exactly at this salt lake.
And if you look at the making of that documentary, you'll see one of the cameraman up in a tree
with the elephants like staying around him for like, oh, they are deadly.
I mean, they look cute, but yeah.
So fortunately for us, no elephants at the salt lake.
And so we're actually be able to get out of the forest and back to camp.
And it's ultimately the guide also said like, okay, Dominique, really smart move to stay
put and climb a tree with the elephant.
And so this is something that the guy told us, I don't know, I've never verified this
information.
He said like, if the elephant would have found you, he would have either pushed over the
tree and killed you.
And this is his experience as an ex hunter.
For him, he said the most dangerous animal in the forest was actually the elephant.
Because as a hunter, if you don't kill the elephants, the elephant will kill you.
Yes, I understand that.
Yeah, it was kind of his kind of take on like how dangerous these elephants can be.
And he said if the elephant can't push over the tree, it will actually gurgitate stomach
acid and spray that you.
Really?
I've never heard that one.
I've never heard that before.
So is it an urban legend or a forest legend?
Or is it true?
I have no idea.
But again, this is something that would be awesome to find out.
I told this.
Yeah, we're not to find out really physically.
But I mean, yeah, no, thank you.
But his what he said is like, yeah, they will spray acid at you, you will fall out of the
tree and they will kill you anyways.
Wow.
That was basically his take on elephants in the forest.
Well, okay, that's that's a hair raising story right off the bat.
So again, like and so it made me realize one thing is that if you do feel work in these
kind of places, you don't want to take people to the field that are not fit and capable
to run because at some point, there can be situations where it actually like I literally
thought I was running for my life.
You were and it was a dangerous situation, you know.
Especially if you tripped somewhere in the undergrowth, yeah, that would have been the
end.
Wow.
Yeah.
So this is part of doing fieldwork in remote places.
Yeah, but it's it's an amazing story.
And I've never been to Cameroon or Gabon, but it must be a treat for you as a biologist,
right?
They're amazing places.
I mean, the people are wonderful.
But again, like in some cases, and this maybe leads me to another story.
Go ahead.
Go right.
The most dangerous thing is the people.
Really?
On another trip, we're actually in Cameroon.
And okay, in Cameroon, more the west side of Cameroon, close to the border with Nigeria,
we're there to look for a small itty bitty frog, Xenopus.
And so our goal was to find Xenopus tropicalis, which is a model system used in biology.
The problem is that all the lab Xenopus have zero genetic diversity because they're all
derived from a single stock which had been bred and inbred for 40, 50 years.
And so we wanted to do this project with a colleague of mine, Camille, to look at selection
on traits and see how this takes place.
So we needed genetic diversity.
Sure.
We had colleagues in Cameroon that were nice enough to take us to the field.
Really good collaboration, colleague from Buea, colleague from Yaounde.
Today, we have a car with a driver.
And so we take us to the field.
First we go to a site close to the border with Gabon in southeast of Cameroon.
We catch some frogs and clearly they're not the right species, tropicalis.
So we go the other direction, more towards the border with Nigeria.
Okay.
That's really the edge of the country.
Yeah.
And it's a dangerous, it's a non-dangerous area because there's lots of pirates going
across the border.
It's also one of the areas where you can find Goliath frogs.
Oh.
Frogs, the biggest frogs in the world.
So I was excited about this.
I was excited to be able to maybe potentially also see these frogs.
Yeah.
And we also have the hairy frogs, Trichobotrychus.
Beautiful, beautiful.
In that same area.
So really interesting biodiversity, amazing colleagues.
And so we head out to the field to find these animals.
And so we're looking, we're looking.
And so in every kind of forest pond that we come, we look for frogs.
I clear out a bunch of ponds, trying to find frogs.
We find tadpoles, not the right species.
And we continue looking and we go to a bunch of villages and asking them about frogs.
And of course, the first thing they always talk about is Trichobotrychus, the hair frog
or Goliath frogs, because most scientists up until that time had been looking for these
big frogs.
And of course, in these villages, just like we did in Gabon, like if people bring us stuff,
we pay them for their efforts.
Sure.
We set up a little like a village market more or less.
And so typically what you do is like in these villages, together with our colleagues from
Cameroon, we'd go and find the village chief, offer the village chief a bottle of whiskey
or whatever.
And then he assigns a couple of people that go with you to the field and try to find the
species you're looking for.
Fish, frogs, lizards, whatever.
And usually it's a system that works really well.
And so we've been successful in doing this.
And this is also what our Cameroonian colleagues suggested to do as we get to the villages.
And so at some point we get to a village and the chief is not there.
Okay.
I don't know, big deal.
It's a small village.
We talked to some people.
They hear that we're looking for frogs and our colleagues say like, yeah, if we can find
these frogs, we're willing to pay you guys some money.
Very normal thing that we do all the time.
Sure.
And so we start explaining, we're looking for frogs and they're immediately like, oh,
yeah, the big frogs.
And they take us to a big river and they show us and actually was able to see one of these
glide frogs.
Oh, yeah.
Awesome.
Amazing.
So there was like this big river with some cascades, like some waterfalls.
And then there was like, well, these big frogs.
But as soon as you get 20 meters from it, because people eat them locally, very afraid
of people and they jumped into the water.
But we still got to see it, so which was quite amazing.
And we talked to the people, we're like, no, no, no, that's not what we want.
We want these little itty bitty frogs.
And so we had a picture also, we showed them pictures.
And then all of a sudden this really old dude from the village, he's like, oh, I know what
you're looking for.
And he's like, did they make this sound like, look, look, look, look, look, it's really
like ticking sounds.
And like, yeah, that's it.
He actually knows what we're looking for, because these are as they call them water.
And so they have this kind of bizarre kind of call different from any other frog.
And so clearly we had somebody that knew what we were looking for.
And so we get excited.
We're like, yeah, this is what we want.
Where can we find them?
And he takes us to a pond in the middle of the village.
We take a basket.
So they make these wicker baskets.
We take one scoop and there's the frogs that we want.
We're like, yeah, frogs.
And all of a sudden, like a whole bunch of people started crowding us.
Oh, a bunch of people start crowding us.
The village chief was not there.
And most of the people in the village were completely drunk.
And so they start arguing amongst themselves who's going to catch the frogs for us and
who's going to get ultimately the money.
Yeah.
I see.
Oh, dear.
And then the village chief, so nobody to basically assign people to different tasks, which usually
works really well.
And so we're waiting a little bit.
We're like, yeah, I know this older man who knew where their frogs were.
I mean, he's clearly the one that knows.
And so he's the one that and then some younger guys got excited.
And then people started talking.
People start shouting.
And somebody pulls out a machete.
Our Cameroonian colleagues are like whispering in my ear.
So me and my colleague Camille, he's like, Anthony, go to the car very quietly.
And so we go to the car.
The driver starts the car.
And all of a sudden, we see our two Cameroonian colleagues running to the car with a bunch
of people with machetes running behind them.
And so they get into the car and take off as fast as they could.
Yeah, obviously.
And so this is an instance of doing field work where the danger is not the animals in
the forest.
But again, 99% of the time, things go really well and people are super friendly.
But yeah, but sometimes, yeah, sometimes it could be a little iffy.
And again, like, yeah, people with machetes are not.
Oh, no, that's not what you want to see.
Drunk people with machetes running after you in a place in Africa where they will never
find you again.
Exactly.
If they succeed in catching you.
Yeah.
So yeah.
So we left without our phones.
Yeah.
Did you find them in the end or?
So what we did is we went back to the larger town close by.
We discussed a little bit.
And then my colleagues are like, okay, we're going to go back tomorrow or two days later
in the hope that the village chief was there.
Yeah.
And then the wild guys stay because clearly you're associated with the money.
And so they went back and talked to the village chief.
The village chief appointed some people and everything went smoothly.
And so our colleagues brought us back over 100 frogs, actually.
Wow.
Okay.
We then took back to the lab and I still have some of these frogs here in the lab right now.
How old are they?
How long ago was that?
That was 2009.
So they are 15 years old and they're still doing fine.
So we ultimately got our frogs.
Turns out like once we sequenced the frogs, again, it was not the species we were looking
for for a long time.
Morphologically we thought it was tropicalis.
Turns out it's alophrasery.
It's a very morphologically similar species.
Very interesting.
But look at the frog we originally thought we had.
You almost lost some limbs over that one.
Yeah.
No, I mean, yeah.
Fortunately, nobody's been after me with machetes, but I have had rocks thrown at my head several
times.
Yeah.
If you go around at night and you surprise people, they respond however they respond.
Right?
Yeah.
Rocks, guns.
I mean, that's a pretty common occurrence in most places, especially in Texas.
I mean, like one time we were catching lizards and we had fish and wildlife, had border patrol.
We had the local cops.
We had one other agency for agencies because we were on a dry riverbed, which we thought
was public land, but they told us 99% of Texas is private, boy.
Oh.
Yeah.
So they didn't request charges, but still it was quite the experience also.
Yeah.
And in the US there's always immediately guns.
I mean, give me a rock anytime.
Yes.
I agree.
But not a machete.
Yeah, no.
So again, like sometimes...
Yeah, but most of the time, as you say, the experience is very nice.
You get invited, the people tell you stories.
Absolutely.
99% of the time people are super nice.
Yeah.
But those are not the big stories where you run for your life again.
Yeah.
Awesome.
If you want, I can tell a final story.
Please.
Yes.
Again, like it's just kind of a funny story also where we're in South Africa.
South Africa at this time.
This time is South Africa.
We're not too far from Kruger working in one of these private game reserves.
Yeah.
This one, I think if I remember correctly, was owned by the De Beers, the mining company.
They were very friendly.
They let us use the reserve to do our research.
Very accommodating.
So we can use the accommodation there, which typically people pay lots of money for.
So we're in this reserve and it's a beautiful place.
We're looking for lizards on this project.
Mostly the surdid lizards that we're looking for.
Oh, yeah.
African lizard.
It's very exciting.
Yeah.
Interesting animals.
So again, most of the time we're noses on the ground, like another trip like noses on
the ground.
One of the guys is like, hey guys, look up and there's like four rhinos in front of us.
We're downwind so all is fine.
No big deal.
But we kind of have to kind of pay attention.
Yeah.
That's the thing about catching small things.
There could be big things watching you at the same time.
It's a one time in Kruger also.
It's not the story we're going to tell, but it's like we have a guide with us with a rifle
because we're in a reserve close to Kruger and where they put all the problem elephants.
Oh.
So the single males that are a bit like annoying.
And so the guys with us in the jeep and we drive to this place, the type locality for
one of the new species that we're looking for.
Yeah.
Lizards.
Yeah.
Lizards.
But it hadn't been seen for a long time and we're like, oh, let's go to the type locality
see if we can find it.
And so we get to the type locality and asked the guy with the guns like, oh, is it okay
if we keep out?
He's like, yeah, yeah.
And I opened the back door of the four by four and it's like a rhino in three lines
sitting right in front of me.
How can he say it's all right?
He didn't look.
He looked in front, not in the back.
So they've been following your car?
No, they're just back by happenstance.
They were just there.
So I looked at the guy and I'm like, are you sure he looks back?
He's like, no, no, no, no, no.
So yeah, well, I mean, this is part of like, so even if you have somebody with a rifle
with you, it's good to pay attention.
It is.
And it's not a trip like we're at the end of the day, we've been looking for lizards
and there's this kind of watering hole where there's hippos and of course we pay particular
attention to hippos.
Hippos can be quite dangerous.
And especially between them and the water, they will actually nothing will stop them
when they go back to the water.
So we're pretty careful.
We walk around, pay attention.
Don't see any hippos for now, but there's a little hill right next to the water.
And so we're like, oh, let's go to the top of the hill and just watch the sunset.
I mean, this is also part of the field work.
You enjoy doing scenery.
Sure.
A long day of work.
Like, okay, let's go do that.
And so we start to, there's about five of us, I think, and so we start climbing the
hill and in front.
And all of a sudden we hear this lion roar.
But my body is reverberating.
I know what you mean.
Yeah.
It's an amazing sound.
It's like amazing.
And one of the students who's with us, she looks down in the valley, like down low, and
there's a lion there.
And so everybody's looking at the lion, it's like, oh, the lion just roared.
It's amazing, the sound.
But little did people know that I was in front and the lion that roared was actually maybe
five meters away from me.
Just up the hill.
And so whether he roared at the lion down, it's a male, or we were getting too close
to him and he was just kind of safe.
And so nobody had seen the lion just in front of us.
And so I told everybody, let's go back to the car.
So the car was like in between the two lions.
And I was like, let's go back to the car.
Let's stay together.
You never know.
Yeah, exactly.
We're not trying to like scare people.
No panic, no running.
Like, yeah, but it's good to stay together.
You never know.
And so we walk down to the car.
As we get into the car, I'm like, hey, look out, everybody.
Yeah.
So this is kind of like this.
And again, the lion didn't do anything.
The males are super lazy, just lie there.
And so again, like we don't know if he just roared because we were getting too close.
He's just kind of saying like, hey, guys, get out of here.
Or when he actually saw the other lion, which is lower down and just roared to the other
lion, we have no idea.
What's the experience of feeling that sound from?
Oh, I know.
I mean, I measured the bite force of lions and to be in the cage when they roar.
Oh my God.
Everything vibrates, as you say.
It's a special experience.
Very powerful.
Yeah.
It just makes your hair stand on end.
I had the same thing in Malaysia once with a tiger.
Now walking around and there were some bushes moving and there was a huge flock of birds
following but whatever was moving in the bushes overhead.
And then it was very, very close to us.
And then we heard his roar and yeah, it goes right through.
It was like the ground is vibrating even.
And then fortunately it ran away.
But that is a very primal fear.
Exactly.
It happens to another.
And so it's a thing about Africa that I like, you feel like you're part of the prey.
I see.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In most other continents, like if you go to Asia, you go to South America, it's pretty
friendly.
There's not too many things out there that really can do you harm or eat you.
But you're in Africa.
It's a different world.
That's where we're from.
Yep.
They evolved to eat us pretty much.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Amazing.
Oh my God, Anthony, I think you have some more stories there.
We've just touched Africa today.
So I'm going to have to get you back on sometime in the future.
There's some funny South America stories as well if you at some point want to hear them.
We totally do.
Amazing.
Yeah.
But Africa, maybe I'll have to tag along at some point with you.
It's a special place.
And so it's really near and dear to my heart.
It's amazing people, amazing biodiversity.
Is it your favorite place?
Because you spend a lot of time in South America as well.
Every place is different and I love going.
But the most interesting thing for me was to be able to see tropical rainforests both
in South America and Central Africa and in Southeast Asia.
And to appreciate the differences in these forest types that have driven a lot of the
diversity that you see actually in these different biomes.
And it's more tropical rainforests, but they're so different in the end.
So being lucky enough to be able to go there and see these different forest types is just
one of the things involved.
And surviving and being able to tell you the stories about it afterwards is a bit of a
bonus on top then.
Absolutely.
Anthony, thank you very much.
If people want to follow you, find out what you're doing, read your papers, where should
they go online or social media?
My website, I have a website where I keep all my papers up to date.
And then I have a Twitter account if people are interested.
I'm not the most active Twitter, but I do like to retweet papers of my students mostly
and people doing interesting things.
So yeah.
Awesome.
I'll put those on with the description of this podcast.
And for now, thanks a lot and I really hope we get you back for South America one day.
All right.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
Awesome.