The Centinela mountain range in western Ecuador has a sad reputation among biologists: In the 1980s, rapid and extensive deforestation in the region led scientists to worry that numerous unique plant species were being wiped out as a result. The American biodiversity expert Edward O. Wilson even coined the term “Centinelic extinction” for the phenomenon of the disappearance of species when their small-scale habitat is destroyed. But even if the losses were enormous: Smaller forest islands were preserved and offered some plants the last refuges. This is evidenced by the rediscovery of a species that already has extinction in its name. However has Gasteranthus extinctus actually survived, as a team led by Dawson White from the Field Museum in Chicago writes in »PhytoKeys«.
»Extinction got its distinctive name given the extensive deforestation in western Ecuador,” says White. Indeed, the country’s coastal region and adjacent Andean foothills have lost up to 97 percent of their original forest cover. However, smaller and larger patches of natural vegetation remained, especially in inaccessible places, but these have slipped out of the scientific view. G. extinctus about was collected shortly before deforestation, but only described in 2000. In view of the dramatic loss of forest, those involved assumed that it no longer existed and referred to it as “extinctus” in the species name.
But no one actually looked for the species locally; first expeditions from 2009 could no longer provide evidence. However, White and his colleague Nigel Pitman were not discouraged and went on another expedition in 2021 – although their attempt to find suitable biotopes with the help of satellite images failed: the mountain range was obscured by clouds in many places in the images. “For the first time I was planning an expedition where we weren’t sure if we were going to enter a forest at all,” says Pitman.
But already on the first day on site they found the remains of intact cloud forests. And within hours they tracked down living specimens of the species thought lost. “We didn’t have a photo for comparison, just pictures of dried herbarium specimens, a line drawing, and a written description. However, we were pretty sure we had found the plant because of its small hairs and showy flowers,” says Pitman.