African Honeyguides

Research on a remarkable
human-animal relationship

Dr Dominic Cram joins the team

May 20, 2018

Dom Cram joins the project as an ERC postdoc based at the University of Cambridge. Dom’s previous post-doc work investigated cooperation in Kalahari Meerkats. Timm Hoffman, eminent landscape ecologist from the University of Cape Town, joins us as well. Dom and Timm bond on a particularly gruelling Land Rover journey to the field site. Wet season travel! Dom is rewarded with dozens of honeyguide captures, and Timm with stunning Sterculia trees. Here are Timm, our Mariri colleague Rachide Herculano, David, Claire and Dom, and Malangaranga Mountain in the distance.

News

David presents at the Apimondia Africa Symposium

David Lloyd-Jones recently gave a talk on what honeyguides and honey-hunters have taught us about Niassa’s wild honeybee ecology at the Apimondia Africa Regional Symposium held in Durban. He was honoured to pay further tribute to Ricardo Guta and his contribution to bee research in Niassa Special Reserve. Many...

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In memory of our colleague Ricardo Guta

Ricardo Guta, our dear colleague and friend in our research team, tragically died on 1 December 2022 following a swimming accident in the Cape mountains. All our thoughts are with his wife, Lailat, and their children Adrielle and Piotr. Ricardo’s life was honoured by his colleagues in a memorial at the University of Cape Town on 9 December 2022. He will soon be laid to rest by his family in his home city of Beira, Mozambique.

Ricardo’s warm and generous personality and passion for natural history touched everyone he met. He was much loved and respected at Gorongosa National Park where he worked as an entomologist, at the University of Cape Town where he had just completed his MSc studies, and at the Niassa Special Reserve where we recently carried out a wonderful field trip together. Ricardo had just begun his PhD in our research team, studying the influence of honeyguide-human mutualism on honeybee ecology. We are heartbroken to have lost a wonderful scientist, conservationist and human being, and we miss him deeply.

Ricardo’s legacy will live on in our team as we remember his joy and optimism, and his remarkable capacity to bring people together.

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