Rotting Fingers and Back Fungus: The Joys of Field Ornithology

Nate Rice tells the tale of his African fungal associations.

Port of Call – Malabo, Equatorial Guinea

15 June 2002

As part of the Academy’s mission to document the world’s biodiversity, I have been studying the bird life in central Africa. Our goal on this trip is to sample the avifauna in remote peaks of the Monte Alen National Park, the highest mountain peaks in central Africa south of the highlands in Cameroon. While much of the lowlands in central tropical Africa have been deforested by logging companies many of the highlands remain intact. In fact, much of the highlands are completely untouched, have never been surveyed for birds, and are difficult to traverse even for the indigenous people of the region.

Joining me on this trip are two ornithologists from the Yale Peabody Museum (Dr. Kristof Zyskowski and Jorge de Leon) and one student from the University of Kansas (Luis Antonio Sanchez). The expedition started on 23 May 2002 in Bata, the largest mainland city in Equatorial Guinea, where we rented a vehicle and driver to take us to the base of Mount Alen.

There is a small Fang village at the base of Monte Alen where we hired porters to help us get our expedition material and equipment into the highest peaks of the national park (El Miradora). After a night in the village, we made our way along steep muddy trails to a small clearing at nearly 1200 meters elevation. With good shade, access to a small stream and numerous game trails on which to hunt, this seemed like the perfect place to make camp for two or three weeks.

We soon realized that our seemingly idyllic campsite was decidedly not so. The fresh water was at best intermittent, providing just barely enough drinking water and certainly no bathing opportunities. Excessive winds and rains wrecked havoc on our tents, tarps, and mist nets. The lack of adequate bathing opportunities caused us to get pretty grimy and this combined with hiking 8-10km every day in mountainous terrain made for fairly unsanitary conditions.

For me, the lack of bathing combined with a consistent wardrobe (i.e., same clothes everyday) bred a most wonderful fungal growth on my back. Essentially benign for most of its life on my body, it did tend to cause fairly intense itching when I started to sweat. Of course scratching my back would tear the fungus apart leaving me with black stained fingers and nails. I wasn’t able to rid myself of the fungus until I returned to the States. Using copious amounts of tolfonate (primary use is as athletes foot treatment) I was able to kill the entirety of the fungal mat.

Sometime towards the end of our mountain camp and the start of our lowland camp at Rio Asoc, an insect bored its way under my left index finger and died under the nail. The real infection didn’t start for a week or so, but when it did it was unbelievable. It began by turning the entire nail reddish brown and then swelling to slightly larger in size than my thumb. The swelling eventually caused the nail to split sagitally but not fall off. I wasn’t able to remove the diseased nail until returning to the U.S. When I got home I ripped the nail completely off revealing a partially grown and deformed new nail. To this day the nail on my left index finger is flattened on one side.

Have a nice day.