African Honeyguides

Research on a remarkable
human-animal relationship

Ricardo Guta

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Ricardo Guta

Biography

I have always had very diverse interests in nature which trace back to my childhood. These interests later landed me in Gorongosa National Park, where I participated in the very first Biodiversity Survey conducted by a team of national and international scientists. Later I became a member of the scientific team, working in the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory (EOWL) in Gorongosa as a research technician focussing on the documentation of insect biodiversity. That experience aroused my interest in understanding insect biology, evolution, and interactions with other organisms. 

My educational background is in agriculture and livestock from the Instituto Agrário de Chimoio in Mozambique, where I gained experience in crop and animal production, which enabled me to launch a project entitled Animal Protection and Health (PROTECSA) in 2012, whose main goal is to provide technical support to local communities to improve health, food and reproductive management of their livestock. I have also worked as a teacher in one of the community Institutes, and as a technician with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This in turn led me to enrol for a Biological Science Course degree at the Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique. For my research project, I studied the diversity and ectoparasitic load of grasshoppers in Quirimbas National Park. I am currently studying towards a MSc in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town and for my thesis, I am studying the phylogeography of flightless spring katydids in the Greater Cape Floristic Region. In 2022 I joined the African Honeyguides as an expert entomologist. My overriding experience in ecology, biogeography, systematics, macrophotography, and conservation of insects, as well as my entomology background, will come in handy in this project.

Ricardo tragically passed away on 1 December 2022. Ricardo’s legacy lives on in our team as we remember his joy and optimism, and his remarkable capacity to bring people together. Please visit tributes to Ricardo on this website, the FitzPatrick Institute, and Gorongosa National Park.

Research focus

My role within the African Honeyguides Project is to better understand the effect of human-honeyguide mutualism on honeybee behaviour and ecology, and pollination. Honey-hunting is considered a major threat to wild bee populations in Asia and has never been evaluated in Africa. This study is extremely relevant, especially in Niassa Special Reserve, where this rare remarkable cooperative relationship still thrives. To harvest the bees’ nest, smoke is often used to subdue the bees. However, not much is known about the effects of honey-hunting on honeybees and pollination.

 

Peer-reviewed publications

 

 
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News

Tragic attacks in the Niassa Special Reserve, Mozambique

May 7, 2025

On 29 April 2025, armed insurgents attacked the Mariri Environmental Centre in Mozambique’s Niassa Special Reserve, resulting in the tragic loss of two anti-poaching scouts, Domingos Daude and Fernando Paolo Wirsone (please see statement from the Niassa Carnivore Project). This followed a prior tragic attack at Kambako Safari camp on 19 April. Mariri and the nearby village of Mbamba are at the heart of our work on human-honeyguide cooperation, made possible by the knowledge and partnership of the Mbamba honey-hunting community. We grieve alongside the people of Mariri, Mbamba, and the wider Niassa community, and stand in solidarity with the enduring spirit of conservation and unity.

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New paper on honeyguides guiding to snakes (and a mammal) rather than to bees

Apr 27, 2025

In a new study from the Honeyguide Research Project, we are excited to present evidence that honeyguides occasionally guide humans to non-bee animals. Our research – which builds on centuries of reports by a wide variety of human cultures across Africa – shows how the behaviour of honeyguides when guiding humans to wild bees’ nests, is spatially and acoustically similar to when honeyguides guide humans to other kinds of animal. In Niassa Special Reserve, where this research was conducted, we find this to be a rare behaviour (occurring on around 1% of honey-hunting interactions). We suggest that the most likely explanation for such behaviour is not as punishment for not previously rewarding the birds with beeswax, nor as a form of altruistic warning behaviour, but rather, due to cognitive mistakes in the birds’ spatial recall.

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Lailat and Jessica on fieldwork at Niassa

Feb 7, 2025

Lailat Guta and Jessica van der Wal returned to the Niassa Special Reserve, to visit our long-term collaborators in the Mbamba honey-hunting community and at Mariri Environmental Centre. As part of Lailat’s MSc research on the relationship between honey-hunting and the broader ecosystem, Lailat and Jessica are conducting interviews with honey-hunters and other knowledgeable individuals to document the economic and cultural values of trees and crops, and their dependence on bees.

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