Isalo National Park is the most visited of Madagascar’s parks. The park protects the Isalo Massif, a long network of sandstone canyons that is a favorite of trekkers. Here we were able to see some beautiful scenery and, because of good fortune, we were able to get two people from the park to lead our group while we were there; the head of research for the park and a very knowledgeable local guide. We were told by Devin not to expect much in the way of amphibians because it had been very dry. So expecting to see Mantella expectata, a species which in some seasons has bright sky-blue legs, was likely unrealistic.
Scaphiophryne gottlebei, a slightly larger small frog was another on the list of unlikelies, and we set out first to find it in a large grotto that in times of rain, gets massive amounts of water dumped into it from above. The site itself was unusual and worth the short hike, even if we were not successful in finding our little frog buddy. On the way in we saw an endemic owl, which some in our group managed to photograph, but this time I was bringing up the rear, and the owl was spooked before I could get the right lens on the camera. The frog was there, inside one of the many small holes along the back wall. Without the head of research along, we probably would not have found it. He only found one (pictured above) and we took turns photographing it. The photo shoot took about an hour, and during that time no one else found another one. Lucky we were!
So now it was time to set out on the long uphill climb to where Mantella expectata might be found. We were all sweating profusely by the time we got to the first potential site, where there was a little stream of water coming down from the pinnacles above, forming many small pools. The little pools looked like a good place for a little frog to live, but the whole group did not find a single frog. We repeated the process two more times without success and we figured three strikes and we were out. I started photographing scenery and people. Our expert had one more place to look, and there too we had no luck…until Sean Betti started looking under rocks away from the stream. There it looked bone-dry, and the usual suspects—scorpions and geckos—were turning up. They were interesting, but not really what we were after. Then just as we were about to give up, Sean said, “I found one.”
For more pictures and a photo of the striking Mantella epectata click here. Try to see if you can find it. This specimen does not have sky-blue legs, but they are blue. The Frog Whisperer is holding it.