country of Cameroon. Visit 10 crater lakes. Discover what lives in each. On paper, I wasn’t thinking about the challenges and dangers I might face. I was thinking about fi sh. You see, I am an ichthyologist. T at


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means I'm a scientist who studies fi sh. T e lakes I wanted to study are part of a chain in Cameroon. T ey are volcanic crater lakes. Volcanic explosions formed circular


craters. Over time, the craters fi lled with water. Because of the way they formed, each of the lakes is its own laboratory. Most of the lakes are completely isolated


from each other. Some are fi lled only with rainwater. T ey aren’t connected to anything else, such as rivers. More importantly, most have never been studied by scientists. I had some ideas about what I might


fi nd there. I study speciation. T at’s the process by which new species develop in an environment. I suspected I would fi nd new species here. I also thought I would fi nd fi sh that lived only in this part of the world. T ere was something else on my mind,


too. None of the lakes are protected. Many are threatened by human encroachment. Perhaps my discoveries can be used to create protections, or at least teach us what we may be losing. So that was the plan. But some of the lakes


are extremely remote. I knew they would require a Herculean eff ort to reach them. One of them, Lake Edib, is completely unknown. T ere are no roads, few villages, and fewer people familiar with the forest in that area. Even the local people don’t go to Lake


Edib. I was perhaps the fi rst to want to go there in many years. I had high expectations of fi nding new species there.


n paper, the goal seemed simple. Go to the


EUROPE ASIA AFRICA Cameroon


ATLANTIC OCEAN


INDIAN OCEAN


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