The rain had stopped when Reuber Albuquerque Brandão, 49, arrives at 6:45 pm, following the report from leaf, to the Clean Water Farm. A maned wolf crosses in front of the van directed by the herpetologist, but the vertebrate we are looking for is much smaller.
The 4,500 hectares (4.5 km2) from the experimental area of the University of Brasília (UnB), a few kilometers from the Plano Piloto, is teeming with wild life. In the highest part, the water runs through cracks in the ground forming small streams; it only takes one step to cross them.
The croak is intense, and Brandão begins to list the singers: Dendropsophus minutus, high-pitched yellow tree frog; Physalemus cuvieri, dog frog, which barks as such; Boana buriti, pajama tree frog, named for the stripes that cut the body from end to end.
Hearing is one thing, seeing is another. The first reptile sighted after sunset is not a batrachian, but a little snake: Chironius brazili, two palms of silent green resting curled on the leaves of a bush in the savannah.
A few more minutes of searching and finally the vocalizing star of the night appears: Pithecopus oreades, or oreadica tree frog, described in 2002 by Brandão. The scientific name of the genus (from the Greek “pithekos” means monkey) alludes to the simian style of slow locomotion between branches, without jumping.
When stretching limbs to walk from sheet to sheet, the P. oreades (whose second name refers to the Greek mountain nymphs) reveals a striking pattern of reticulated red on black. The colored secret is hidden between folds of the predominant green of the body when it shrinks.
The tree frog depends on crystalline streams to breed. Female and male nests of curled leaves over small wells in streams, where tadpole eggs drip into calmer water where they will develop limbs and lose their tails.
Because of its dependence on waters with a temperature of 20ºC to 27ºC, the tree frog serves as an indicator of the quality of water that originates in the high areas of the cerrado, about 15% of the biome that feeds much of the country’s rivers and hydroelectric plants. If it disappears, it is a sign that water resources are not doing well.
Brandão was approached by the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF) to study the conservation of the P. ayeaye, cousin of the tree frog that lives in Serra da Canastra (MG) and is critically endangered, according to the Red List of Threatened Species.
He then suggested that the project cover three other related species, including the P. oreades, who could monitor the half-hour drive from UnB. The Conservation of Pithecopus ayeaye, Related Species and Their Ecosystems, financed with US$ 46 thousand (R$ 262 thousand) by CEPF in the period 2019-21.
Brandão’s team visited 68 localities that occur in mountains and mountains, almost always fragile areas of cerrado, threatened by deforestation and urban expansion. Population distribution models indicated priority areas for conservation.
Based on this, the next step is to seek to convince landowners to create private natural heritage reserves (RPPNs) in Goiás and Minas Gerais. As long as they can hear the croak of the Pithecopus, human beings will be able to count on good and clean water — even in the vicinity of the noisy federal capital.
Journalists Lalo de Almeida and Marcelo Leite traveled at the invitation of the International Education Institute of Brazil (IEB) and the Partnership Fund for Critical Ecosystems (CEPF)
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