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In the guest blog, Thomas Hofmann, Vera M. F. Hammer and Martin Krenn look at zoological and geological research in Brazil.
Anyone who only thinks of samba, carnival and football when they think of Brazil overlooks the country's natural diversity with its great wealth of biological species. Brazil, with an area of 8,515,770 square kilometers, has more to offer than the often associated rainforest of the Amazon. With the Cerrado tree steppe in the center, swamp areas in the midwest, the dry savannah in the northeast and the grass steppe in the south, the country has very different biomes, i.e. large-scale habitats. According to current estimates, the most species-rich country on our planet is home to around 1.8 million species, including 700 mammal species, 1,900 bird species, 848 reptiles, 1,119 amphibians and 3,500 fish species. There are also 100,000 insect and 55,000 plant species.
For over 200 years, starting with the great Brazil expedition in 1817, in which Johann Natterer (1787–1843) and Emanuel Pohl (1782–1834) took part, local researchers have made a significant contribution to the exploration of the country. Since then, there have been repeated research initiatives, including that of the zoologist Friedrich Schaller (1920–2018), the former head of the first Zoological Institute at the University of Vienna.
In 1973, Schaller was looking for employees for a research project in the Amazon. However, the initial enthusiasm was limited, as the Amazon was still stigmatized as the “Green Hell” at the time and its reputation as a hotspot of biodiversity was in its infancy. "In the end, we were able to recruit three young zoology students who were just about to complete their doctorates, and I was the first to set off for a year in Brazil after submitting my electrophysiological dissertation in November 1974," remembers the now emeritus zoologist Walter Hödl, chairman of the Lower Austrian Nature Conservation Association, of his early days as a researcher in Brazil. Here it was the frogs that the young zoologist, who became Schaller's assistant in 1978, devoted himself to.
His research topic: the communication of frogs. Hödl focused not only on the acoustics, the croaking, to put it casually, but also on visible signals. These include the vibrating sound bubble or hind legs spread out to the side, keyword “wink frogs”. Today, after having supervised numerous theses and dissertations in Brazil, he is one of the great herpetologists. Hödl has been to South America a total of 55 times, as a researcher and as a lecturer and teacher at universities. It's no surprise that a newly discovered species of poison dart frog bears his name, Allobates hodli. If you want to hear the original sound of the little frog, you've come to the right place HERE.
Less well known is Virgil von Helmreichen zu Brunnfeld, a native of Salzburg in 1805, a miner and mining engineer trained at the Mining Academy in Schemnitz (today: Baňská Štiavnica, Slovakia). After relevant work in Salzburg, he traveled to Brazil in 1836. His first assignment: drafting operational plans for two large gold mining companies in the Minas Gerais province in the east of the country. From 1842 he dedicated himself to his greatest work, crossing the South American continent and creating a geological section (profile).
Starting from Rio de Janeiro, Helmreichen wanted to reach the Sertão desert steppe via São João del-Rei through Goiás. From here it should go, crossing the Grao Chaco, via Bolivia via Chuquisaca and Potosí Lima or another port to the west coast of South America. From there he wanted to return to his homeland, where he still formally held the position of k. k. dressed as a mining official. For this ambitious project he received support from the local side, supported by benevolent advocates at the k. k. Court Minerals Cabinet, such as the natural scientist Karl Franz Anton von Schreibers and the mineralogist Wilhelm von Haidinger, approved the significant sum of 6,000 guilders with the highest resolution of April 1, 1843. The first tranche was to be paid out at the beginning, in Rio, the second on the west coast, after the end of the mission - that was the plan.
Due to extensive preparation that involved purchasing measuring instruments, Helmreichen was only able to start in May 1846. In August 1847 he reached Cuiabá (Mato Grosso province), the center of the South American continent. In February 1848 he came to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, and from here he headed for Concepción on the Chilean Pacific coast. The mission of crossing the continent was thus accomplished.
But the strenuous return took place through the interior of the country to the Atlantic. On March 15, 1851 he arrived in Rio de Janeiro, where he fell ill with smallpox. Despite initial improvement, he suffered a relapse in December 1851 and died on January 6, 1852. He never saw his homeland again. The fruits of his labors had already reached the old world. 1,281 objects alone, including numerous diamonds from various Brazilian locations, are now in the collections of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. His monograph on diamonds with a foreword by his mentor Haidinger had already been published in 1846.
"We brought with us 150 full boxes, apart from countless packages and an ethnographic collection of old bows, arrows, cloth and four pieces of stone axes, particularly valuable since they are hard to find in Europe. I paid a hundred thousand - don't be alarmed! - rice for each piece, i.e. sixty guilders" (Die Zeit, November 11, 1903). That was the conclusion of the ten-month expedition to Brazil led by Franz Steindachner (1834–1919).
On February 15, 1898 he was director of the k. k. natural history court museum and thus also became a real court councilor. Of course, for Steindachner himself it was primarily fish that mattered, as he is considered the ichthyologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He collected, collected, bought and exchanged an incredible 400,000 fish over the course of his almost sixty years of service at the museum. To put this data into perspective: Today the museum's fish collection numbers almost a million specimens, so around 40 percent can be traced back to him. The quirky bachelor newly described over 1,000 species. It is only too understandable that insiders call him “Fischhofrat”.
The Brazil expedition in 1903 was commissioned by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, whose president at the time was the geologist Eduard Suess (1831–1914). Suess and Steindachner had been close friends since their student days. Suess had advised the young Steindachner to devote himself to fish, so in 1859 Steindachner wrote his dissertation on fossil fish in Austria. However, he later preferred modern fish as research objects. Throughout his life, the restless zoologist was on the lookout for “his” fish. He undertook the Brazilian expedition, which was to be his last research trip, with the curators Franz Penther and Otmar Reiser as well as two taxidermists.
They set foot on Brazilian soil for the first time in Recife on February 16, 1903. The goal was to explore the northeastern provinces of the country. The group moved across the country by train, mules, raft and steamer. Steindachner's sister Anna gave her brother a box with ten pairs of new shoes, but when he unpacked them in the jungle, it turned out that they were all too small. "Here all culture ended, now came the wilderness."
The men spared no effort, became ill ("bad fever") and still took every opportunity to collect. Some of the practices back then are now a no-go. "At Lake Panagoa, we had enormous yields by fishing with explosives. The water is thrown up meters high from the bottom, and whatever fish are nearby come to the surface, stunned." They encountered “the first crocodiles en masse” on the Rio Grande and Rio Preta. But despite a “lot of shots,” they only shot three.
If we follow Steindachner's descriptions, it wasn't always so martial. "Our hotel was surrounded day and night by natives who offered us huge quantities of live ostriches, tiger cats, snakes, lizards and frogs for sale. We bought a lot and prepared them immediately." Of course the fish weren't neglected either. "I also had a very good ichthyological yield in the dead arms of the San Francisco River. They were mostly fish from the genus Characnia and Ziehliden." In addition to collecting, the Viennese researchers also had an eye for the flora - "The riverside vegetation is paradisiacally beautiful" - and fauna: "Iguanas stuck to the palm leaves, with their hideous, monster-like appearance, the thick head and the even larger crop, metre-long and terribly lazy lizards. The boatmen simply brushed some of the company off the leaf into the boat with the pole. At night, these animals croak like frogs."
It's a shame that Steindacher and his companions didn't have a microphone with them, because in addition to animal sounds, they would also have captured the sounds of everyday human life in the original sound. No fewer than 59 times, the men were stranded in their boats when the water level was low and were so angry that they sang black "G'stanz'ln" in anger, says Steindachner in retrospect. (Thomas Hofmann, Vera M. F. Hammer, Martin Krenn, June 9, 2022)