In 2021, Alejandro Arteaga and his team set out for Ecuador's cloud forests in search of extinct toads. Scientists couldn't find any. The team discovered something else on the way home.
This is typical in rural areas, according to Arteaga, a research biologist with the Khamai Foundation, a new nonprofit organisation that works to protect Ecuador's biodiversity.
You must ring doorbells because there is no drive-through eatery. If there are individuals, they will prepare meals for you and narrate tales.
A local woman overheard the visitors talking about snakes and amphibians while she was preparing fish for them.
Arteaga believed they were ground shakes of the Atractus species, which had never been properly recorded in that region of Ecuador, based on the chef's description. Refreshed,
The gang turned around and went to a hillside graveyard. According to Arteaga, no burial sites were discovered or harmed during the examination.