The goal seemed simple enough. Go to Cameroon. Visit 10 lakes. Find out what lives in each. I wasn’t thinking about the dangers I might face. I was thinking about fi sh. I am a scientist who studies fi sh. T e lakes are crater lakes created by volcanoes from long ago. Volcanic explosions formed each


circular crater. Over time, 35 of these craters fi lled with water. Because of the way they formed, each lake is its own laboratory. T ey aren’t connected to anything else. And most of these lakes have never been studied by scientists. I study speciation. T at’s the


process by which new species of living things develop in an environment. I thought I would fi nd new species here. Perhaps I would fi nd fi sh that lived only in this part of the world. If that happened, then the region would need to be protected from human development. So that was the plan. My fi rst


stop would be Lake Edib. It's a place known to very few people.


,<967, (:0( (-90*( Cameroon


ATLANTIC OCEAN


INDIAN OCEAN


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