Four new species of tarantulas, including one new genus, have been described from India’s Western Ghats mountains.
A concerning trend shows that 25% of newly described tarantula species since 2000 have appeared in the pet trade, with some appearing for sale within months of being scientifically described.
Tarantulas face dual threats from illegal collection for the pet trade and habitat loss in the Western Ghats, where many are found only in small patches of remaining forest surrounded by tea plantations.
These spiders serve as important predators and indicators of healthy habitats in their ecosystems, but are particularly vulnerable due to their slow reproduction rates and the difficulty in detecting them during smuggling attempts.
A researcher described four new species of tarantulas, including one new genus, from India’s Western Ghats, a chain of mountains running along the country’s west coast.
“Most people in India are not even aware that there are tarantulas in India when there are more than 60 species in the country,” Zeeshan Mirza, from the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Germany, who found and described the species, told Mongabay.
The large, fuzzy spiders live in tree hollows, along streams and forest paths, and in forest patches. They exhibit interesting behaviors, such as females carrying their egg sacs under their mouth parts (or chelicerae) or creating hammock-like web structures to protect their eggs.
Zeeshan Mirza with one of the new tarantula species from the Western Ghats. Mirza has discovered several species of reptiles in India as well. Photo courtesy of Mirza.
One of the new species, named Haploclastus bratocolonus (meaning “tree dweller”), makes its home in hollow trees along rivers. Another species, Haploclastus montanus, was found living at elevations higher than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) in mountain forests, making it one of the highest-living tarantulas known from the region. Some of the new species were found in the rare small fragments of remaining shola forest surrounded by tea plantations.
Among the species was an entirely new genus of tarantulas called Cilantica, named after the Tamil word for spider. They can be identified by the unique scattered pattern of curved bristles on their bodies, unlike the C-shaped arrangement of bristles found in other tarantulas.
Tarantulas serve important roles in their forest homes, acting as biological pest controllers and preying on smaller invertebrates and vertebrates. “They also form part of the diet of other species like spider wasps and small carnivores,” Mirza said. “They are keystone species and indicators of undisturbed habitats.”
A female Haploclastus montanus, a new species of tarantula found in the Western Ghats. Photo courtesy of Zeeshan Mirza The burrow of a newly described tarantula genus in the Western Ghats if India. Photo courtesy of Zeeshan Mirza.
However, there’s trouble for tarantulas across the globe. A recent study reveals that 25% of all newly described tarantula species since 2000 have ended up in the international pet trade, meaning many spiders could be at risk from collectors before we can fully understand them
Alice Hughes, a biologist at the University of Hong Kong who studies the global trade in arachnids, found that rare spiders often appear for sale shortly after being scientifically described. Her research revealed that an estimated 1,264 arachnid species are currently traded worldwide.
More than 73% of arachnid species sold online aren’t listed in international trade monitoring systems, according to Hughes’s research. “For most of these species we don’t have the data, but we’re also focusing so much on species like elephants, that we’ve forgotten that literally 99.9% of [arachnid] species are not getting the level of attention they deserve,” she said.
Cilantica agasthyaensis is one of the new species included in a new genus of trantulas from the Western Ghats. Photo courtesy of Zeeshan Mirza.
The problem is made worse because detecting a smuggled tarantula is difficult. “Tarantulas cannot be detected easily through X-ray-based screening at airports as they lack bones,” Mirza said.
He added the speed at which newly discovered species can end up in the pet trade is alarming. For example, the tarantula Haploclastus devamatha was described from the Indian state of Kerala in 2014, and within eight months was being “sold in several online pet stores,” he said. “Even now, many pet stores have this species on sale on their websites.”
Tarantulas are especially vulnerable to overcollection because they reproduce slowly and live a long time (10-20 years or more). Many species are found only in small areas, meaning too much collecting could wipe out entire populations.
“As a researcher, I am worried about the fate of the new species I described,” Mirza said.
Silent Valley National Park in India’s Western Ghats. Some of the mountain range is protected, but many areas face threats from development and hunting. Photo courtesy of Zeeshan Mirza.
The discovery of the new tarantula species underscores both the region’s biological richness and the ongoing need for conservation efforts. The Western Ghats, recognized as a biodiversity hotspot, harbor numerous endemic species found nowhere else on Earth. While parts of it are protected, the ecosystem faces threats from deforestation, agriculture and climate change. The paper suggests that these tarantulas could serve as flagship species for invertebrate conservation in the Western Ghats.
To protect these spiders, Mirza suggested several solutions. People living in areas with tarantulas can help by reporting illegal collection to forest departments. He also recommended better training for customs and airport security, possibly including sniffer dogs to detect smuggled spiders.
For tarantula enthusiasts, Mirza offered clear advice: “Tarantula enthusiasts can be more responsible and only choose species that have been captive-bred and are not sourced illegally.”
Banner image of Zeeshan Mirza, with one of the four new tarantula species he found in India’s Western Ghats.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
Mirza ZA (2024) Systematics of the Western Ghats endemic tarantula subfamily Thrigmopoeinae with the description of a new genus and four new species. Travaux du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle “Grigore Antipa” 67(2): 183-234. https://doi.org/10.3897/travaux.67.e112517
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Migration in the Colombian Amazon was not a state project but a consequence of the army’s armed conflict with the FARC and the emergence of drug trafficking that grew in its shadow.
Although the peace process began in 2017, changes that have occurred since then have given rise to new criminal groups after the guerrillas were eradicated.
Although the Guiana Shield has escaped large-scale deforestation, the region is home to tens of thousands of wildcat gold miners exploiting mineral resources in the thinly populated hinterlands of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
The modern history of internal migration in Colombia began in a manner that was not unlike the processes organized by the governments in Brazil and the other Andean countries in the 1960s and early 1970s. However, that process was derailed first by a civil war and subsequently by the production of illicit drugs, largely because of tactics pursued by the Fuerzas Armada Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The conflict effectively suppressed state infrastructure investment while freezing land acquisition by middle-class families and investors. At the same time, however, it fuelled the migration of displaced peasants, who opted to cultivate coca under the protective umbrella of the FARC.
The conflict officially ended in 2017 via the so-called Peace Process, which brought momentous change to the Colombian Amazon. The FARC no longer exists as an organized military entity, but it has been replaced by criminal groups composed of demobilized guerillas and militia members. Unfortunately, the state has not established a meaningful presence in the region and the cessation of hostilities has triggered a land rush supercharged by the drug trade and the cattle industry.
Two young people ride a motorbike on the street that divides Tabatinga in Brazil from Leticia in Colombia. Crime rates have risen sharply in the region. Image by Ivan Brehaut.
Migratory pathways
Before the civil war, the administration of President Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966–1970) created the Instituto Nacional de Colonización (INCOR) in an attempt to respond to the demand for land by the rural poor. The strategy was supported by multiple grants from The World Bank, including The Caquetá Land Colonization Project, which sought to expand, organize and support the spontaneous colonization process of settlers moving from Huila in the previous two decades. Unfortunately, these were not particularly successful, although the government support consolidated the now-predominant cattle production model.
Caquetá was both a source and a sink of refugees in the 1980s, as people moved within the country to escape violence. During the 1990s and 2000s, the department was a net source of migrants, as an estimated 100,000 people were forced to vacate approximately 450,000 hectares (1.11 million acres) of land. Many moved to Bogotá. As of 2020, the department of Caquetá had a population of about 300,000 inhabitants, 99 per cent of whom were descendants of immigrants who had moved to the region in the last fifty years.
A similar history explains the settlement of the Colombian Putumayo, which occurred originally in conjunction with the advent of oil exploration and was fed by the movement of individuals from the adjacent Andean highlands. Although cattle ranching occupies the largest area, deforestation was largely driven by coca cultivation during most of the 1990s and 2000s. As in Caquetá, ranchers consolidated smaller landholdings that were originally created by coca farmers.
A section of cleared forest in the Colombian Andean Amazon, in the department of Putumayo. Image by Natalia Pedraza.
Migration into Meta and Guaviare in the 1990s and 2000s was almost entirely linked to the production of coca leaf and efforts by the FARC and other militias to extend their influence over the landscapes at the edge of the agricultural frontier. Successive waves of peasant settlers have occupied the landscapes surrounding Parque Nacional Natural Sierra de la Macarena, which the FARC has used as a staging area and refuge since the 1960s.
Their operational tactics changed in the 1980s, when they embraced the illicit drug trade as a source of revenue and actively protected peasant farmers growing coca leaf. Roads did not exist in the forest frontier, nor was it advantageous for coca growers to colonize landscapes accessible by vehicular transport. Consequently, the coca growers and the influence of the FARC expanded by using forest trails and river networks.
The peace process has radically changed this dynamic. Land speculators are financing the relocation of small farmers, who are encouraged to ‘move on’ as their original holdings are consolidated into cattle farms that are now accruing value as the region opens to investment. The central government hopes to limit development in the buffer zones around both Macarena and Chiribiquete national parks, and has limited its infrastructure investment to a limited number of major arteries; however, the local officials and land speculators have been building secondary and tertiary roads at an alarming rate.
Chiribiquete supplies 60% of the surface water in the entire Colombian Amazon. Image courtesy of the National Natural Parks System of Colombia.
Venezuela and the Guianas
Successive Venezuelan governments have viewed the natural resources of the Guiana Shield as an economic asset that should be used for national development. This strategy was formulated in the mid-twentieth century and led to the creation of a state-owned enterprise, the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), to develop mineral and hydrological resources. This decentralized, state-owned conglomerate was established in the 1960s and created a variety of subsidiaries dedicated to the mining and processing of iron ore and steel, bauxite and aluminum, and the development of coal and hydropower energy. The state’s presence was further consolidated in the early 1970s, when President Rafael Caldera (1969–1974, 1994–1999) built a modern highway through the southeastern Gran Sabana region to connect with BR-174, which linked Venezuela with the Brazilian Amazon.
Originally, most of the CVG subsidiaries were efficient producers and competed successfully in international mineral markets; however, their viability as business enterprises declined as their mines aged, industrial assets depreciated and national competitiveness eroded because of mismanagement. The administrations of President Hugo Chávez (1999–2013) and his successor, President Nicolás Maduro (2013–present) bankrupted most of these state-owned business enterprises. Nevertheless, migration into the region has continued because of the allure of the ongoing gold rush, facilitated by the military authorities who now oversee development in the southeastern state of Bolívar.
Guyana and Suriname are coastal countries with historical and cultural ties to the island nations of the Caribbean. Economically they are very dependent on their mineral resources, and they apparently view their Amazonian territories as a natural resource to be exploited when opportunities present. Neither country has designated large areas for protection, and their indigenous territorial systems are relatively small. Most land is held in an unallocated forest reserve. The government of Guyana recently has sought to develop an international transport corridor that would link the emerging agricultural landscapes in Roraima, Brazil, with port facilities in Georgetown. This could change the land-use dynamic along that road as settlers create outposts to provide key services to the transport sector.
The borders among Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana have been managed diplomatically among the colonial powers and the independent states that succeeded them. None of these states seems genuinely interested in colonizing their interior provinces. The border between Venezuela and Guyana is the only remaining contested terrestrial border in the Western Hemisphere. The long-simmering dispute over Guyana’s mineral-rich Essequibo region, which never led to armed conflict, flared up again following the 2015 discovery of an offshore oil deposit potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The floodplains of the Andean piedmont and certain geologically defined landscapes on the Brazilian and Guiana Shield attract tens of thousands of wildcat miners, who employ placer mining technology that is particularly destructive and extraordinarily toxic. Credit: IBAMA & Vincius Mendonça, CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr.com Ryan M. Bolton, Shutterstock.
Migratory pathways
The Guiana Shield has escaped the large-scale settlement and deforestation that characterize both Amazonian Brazil and Andean countries. This does not mean, however, that it has not been impacted by migration. The region is home to tens of thousands of wildcat gold miners exploiting mineral resources in the thinly populated hinterlands of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. These miners are a combination of local inhabitants and fortune-seeking immigrants, mainly Brazilian, whose numbers fluctuate in response to changes in the price of gold. The Suriname government estimates the country has about 20,000 small-scale mining operations, each of which probably employs between five and ten individuals. Most mine owners are native-born Maroons who employ thousands of Brazilian garimpeiros.
It is difficult to know precisely what is transpiring in Venezuela because of the chaotic governance that has characterized the country for the last decade. According to 2011 national census, the municipality of Sifontes had a population of 51,000, but recent reports suggest that this number may have surged to more than 400,000 by 2016. The gold mining region is controlled by the military, which operate numerous mines via joint ventures with Venezuelan businesspeople.
Many of these immigrants may not be gold miners, however, but individuals importing scarce goods from Brazil or seeking to emigrate. At the end of 2022, approximately 70,000 Venezuelans were living in Roraima and Amazonas, with some 33,000 in makeshift shelters and camps. Most, if not all, survive by working in the informal economy.
Banner image: A canoe of Indigenous design in Colombia. Image by J.J. Javier via Nia Tero.
“A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” is a book by Timothy Killeen and contains the author’s viewpoints and analysis. The second edition was published by The White Horse in 2021, under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).
To read earlier chapters of the book, find Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here, Chapter Four here and Chapter Five here.
Chapter 6. Culture and demographic defines the present
Scientists captured the first-ever camera collar footage of wild Andean bears, revealing unprecedented behaviors, including canopy mating and cannibalism.
The research team, led by Indigenous researcher Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, successfully tracked a male bear for four months in Peru’s challenging cloud forest terrain.
The footage challenges previous assumptions about Andean bears being solitary vegetarians and shows them behaving more like other bear species.
While the bears face mounting threats from climate change and human conflict, researchers are combining scientific study with community education to protect them.
In the mountains of Peru, where ancient cloud forests meet the Amazon Rainforest, an Andean bear made scientific history. For four months, a camera collar captured the wild male’s daily life, revealing behaviors never before documented in the Southern Hemisphere’s only bear species, from treetop mating rituals to unexpected acts of cannibalism.
The study, published in Ecology and Evolution, provides a bear’s-eye view of life in one of South America’s steepest and wettest terrains and marks the first time this technology has been used on the species.
“For 15 years, I’ve been traveling up and down that valley and never seen a bear,” Andrew Whitworth, executive director of Osa Conservation and co-author of the study, told Mongabay. “So, the prospect of capturing a bear was quite insane. … These are just sheer walls of cloud forest.”
Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, a National Geographic Explorer and the study’s lead author, led the research team. She says her work to protect the Andean bears of Peru is inspired by the legends of her Indigenous Quechua heritage.
National Geographic Explorer, Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, attaches a trail camera to the branch of a tall tree in the buffer Zone of Manu National Park, Madre de Dios. Photo courtesy of Pablo Durana via National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition.
Guardians of the Andes
Andean bears also hold profound cultural significance in Andean communities. “In Andean Quechua culture, Andean bears are known as Ukuku or Ukumary. The Ukukus are mythical beings, half-human and half-bear,” Pillco Huarcaya told Mongabay in a text message. “I wish people knew that Andean bears are the guardians of the mountains and vital ambassadors for the conservation of cloud forests, their primary habitat.”
To better understand these mountain guardians, in 2023, the team deployed camera collars on three wild Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) in Peru’s Kosñipata Valley. The first two collars were pilot studies that used National Geographic’s CritterCam. However, the study is based on just one longer-term collar worn by a male bear for four months, revealing many behaviors scientists have never seen before.
The footage challenged long-held assumptions about Andean bears being solitary vegetarians. Instead, it showed them as social creatures, having both peaceful and aggressive interactions with other bears.
Love in the Canopy
During his four months under observation, the male bear engaged in two remarkable courtship periods. The first, a weeklong encounter in December 2023, documented something never before seen: Andean bears mating in the tree canopy. The bears were filmed coupling high above the ground in at least eight video clips. A second female encountered the male in March, though no mating was recorded.
“There seems to be these sort of very intimate moments when he’s with a female and they’re hanging out in the same tree, just looking at one another,” Whitworth said. While Andean bears have long been considered solitary, the footage showed the pairs remaining together for days at a time and sleeping next to each other, suggesting their social lives may be more complex than previously understood.
The bear’s agility in the canopy wasn’t limited to mating. The bear was also filmed feeding 20-30 meters [65-98 feet] up into the top of a Cecropia tree. “I remember being really shocked when we saw this,” Whitworth said. “These are fast-growing, very spindly, hollow trees that snap really easily, and we see this bear 30 m up feeding on seeds. Holy smokes!”
Camera collar footage of the male Andean bear interacting with a female Andean bear. Credit: Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya/National Geographic.
Bears will be bears
The footage also revealed that Andean bears are not purely vegetarians but have an omnivorous behavior typical of other bear species. Camera collars caught them eating insects and meat along with fruit, bromeliads and even stinging nettles.
In one surprising discovery, the collared bear was recorded feeding on the carcass of a woolly monkey (Lagothrix cana), the first documented case of an Andean bear consuming a primate. Nine video clips captured the sequence of events, showing the bear first with the monkey’s carcass on the ground before carrying it into the tree canopy, where the primate’s hand was clearly visible. The footage suggests the bear discovered the already-deceased monkey while foraging rather than hunting it.
Even more dramatic were two instances of cannibalism caught on camera. In mid-November 2023, just a month before his mating season, the bear was recorded feeding on a dead bear cub over three days, starting with the head and moving to the stomach.
In a second incident on New Year’s Day 2024, after a long journey crossing the Kosñipata Valley, the bear was filmed in the canopy consuming what appeared to be the partially eaten carcass of another small bear.
While cannibalism has been previously reported in Andean bears in Ecuador, this could be the first documented case of infanticide in Andean bears, a behavior known in other bear species. These videos suggest these bears may be more similar to their northern cousins than previously thought.
“When you look at everything that we’ve recorded,” Whitworth said, “you realize it’s just like any other bear.” This simple observation might be the study’s most profound finding, Whitworth said. Beneath the mystery and mythology, Andean bears are just bears being bears.
An Andean Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) in Parque Nacional del Rio Abiseo, Peru. The species is listed as Vulnerable to extinction in the IUCN Red List and is the only bear species in the Southern Hemisphere. Image by Pedro Peloso courtesy of National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition.
How to catch a bear
Collaring an Andean bear in Peru’s steep cloud forests required ingenuity and patience. The team used an “Iznachi trap,” essentially a large box with a guillotine-style door that drops when a bear enters to take the bait. But first, they had to get the trap into position.
“We had to design it where it was in panels that could be put on your back, and you could hoist these big metal panels out through these mountains,” Whitworth said. “It was pretty dangerous.”
Working with a local mechanic, they created a portable version the team could carry in pieces and assemble on-site. Each trap was connected to a satellite transmitter that would immediately alert researchers via email when triggered.
The process of actually catching a bear required careful preparation. “You don’t arm the trap at first; you kind of want them to just get used to coming in for the bait,” Whitworth said.
Using camera traps, the team spent a year identifying where individual bears hung out before attempting any captures. This allowed them to target specific animals while avoiding females with cubs. The trap’s design ensured only bears could trigger it. “It’s so heavy that pulling the prongs from this big door is actually real hard for an animal to do,” Whitworth said. “If a fox comes, they’ll nibble on the meat, but they’re not strong enough to pull it and trigger the trap.”
Once a bear is caught, the teams head to the field to immobilize it using a precise combination of drugs. During the immobilization, veterinarians conducted health evaluations and fitted a collar with GPS tracking onto the bear.
National Geographic Explorer, Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, holds up footage of an Andean bear exploring the bear cage her team set up. Photo courtesy of Andy Whitworth/National Geographic.
Tracking technology
The collars are designed to be released remotely via satellite, typically after about three months. The researchers wait until the bear is in an area where they think they can retrieve the collar, then send a signal to fire a release mechanism. However, the process isn’t always straightforward.
“The problem is that collar has been on the bear for a few months, and a bunch of gunk can just sort of keep it closed,” Whitworth said. “So sometimes you don’t find the collar in the place where the release went. It can take two or three hours to wiggle off, and the animal could have moved kilometers.”
Even after successfully tracking a collar’s location, retrieving it from the precipitous terrain proved its own adventure. During one recovery attempt, a swollen river separated the team from their quarry. The solution emerged from the community itself.
“Ruth hired a bunch of the local people and we built a makeshift bridge to sort of scramble over this raging torrent,” Whitworth said, highlighting how local knowledge and collaboration often proved crucial to the project’s success.
After retrieving the collar, researchers anxiously waited to see if the data were successfully recorded. Despite these challenges, the team has had been largely successful in recovering their equipment. Across their broader mammal research program, they’ve retrieved 19 out of 20 collars deployed on various species.
This high recovery rate helps justify the steep cost of the technology, around $5,000 per camera collar. The study authors argue the investment is worthwhile when compared with the total cost of bear research.
The bigger challenge, Whitworth noted, is making this technology accessible to researchers in tropical regions where many poorly understood species live. He said that financial support from National Geographic and Rolex allowed the team to take risks on expensive technology, “but for a lot of researchers in the Global South, those risks are unattainable unless they can get access to the resources.”
Beyond the technical and financial challenges, the footage offered something unique: a glimpse into how an Andean bear experiences its world. Whitworth describes the wonder of seeing from a bear’s perspective, noting that the bear would sometimes stop at a vista and look out over the landscape, much like humans do on a hike.
“He’ll be walking and then all of a sudden, he’ll just stop in some beautiful part of the Andes and look out over the river and the valley,” Whitworth said. “He’s probably smelling and looking at his surroundings, but you get the idea that he’s seeing the land, in some respects, how we see it. It’s pretty incredible.”
Camera collar footage of the male Andean bear walking along a river. Credit: Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya/National Geographic.
Seeds of survival
However, understanding Andean bear behavior isn’t just amusing. These large mammals play an important role in the ecosystem, eating seeds and then dispersing them over large distances. This service helps maintain the immense biodiversity of the cloud forest, an ecosystem critical to the water cycle of the entire Amazon Basin.
Yet the bears’ vital role in the ecosystem is at risk. Listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, there are estimated to be fewer than 20,000 Andean bears left in the wild.
The species faces pressures from multiple directions. As the climate becomes hotter and drier, their habitat is pushed upward. At the same time, human activities like farming are moving in from above, leaving the bears less room to roam.
“Sadly, I don’t see things improving for Andean bears anytime soon,” Whitworth said. “There are some scary predictions about cloud forest loss under current climate warming scenarios.”
This squeeze on their habitat forces bears to adapt their movements and behavior. They rarely stay within a national park, instead passing through multiple protected areas and community lands—sometimes raiding crops or in very rare cases preying on livestock. This can lead to retaliatory killings by local people. Camera footage paired with GPS tracking can help researchers and communities understand why bears are going to community lands, what risks they take, and perhaps how to avoid conflicts.
Community conservation
In response to these challenges, Pillco Huarcaya’s team is also working to expand their community engagement efforts, transforming their field station into what Whitworth called a “community conservation campus.”
“My work with children has had a significant impact on how the community views Andean bears,” Pillco Huarcaya said. “Through our ‘Conservation Ambassadors’ program, children visit the Wayqecha Biological Station to learn about the bears and the cloud forest. Many of them didn’t know about Andean bears before, and now they see them as friends that need to be protected.”
Despite the challenges, Whitworth said he remains cautiously optimistic. The behaviors captured by the camera collars demonstrate the bears’ intelligence and adaptability. “If there is a species that can change fast and learn quickly,” he says, “it’s a bear.”
A male Andean bear, and his paw. Credit: Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya/National Geographic.
Banner image of Andean Bear (Tremarctos ornatus) in Parque Nacional del Rio Abiseo, Peru. Image by Pedro Peloso courtesy of National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
Pillco Huarcaya, R., Whitworth, A., Mamani, N., Thomas, M., Condori, E., (2024) Through the eyes of the Andean bear: Camera collar insights into the life of a threatened South American Ursid. Ecology and Evolution 14(12) doi: 10.1002/ece3.70304
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