Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo
In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her. Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest. The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there—a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes—and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle.
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Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo
In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her. Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest. The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there—a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes—and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle.
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Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo
In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her. Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest. The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there—a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes—and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle.
Kate Jackson is Associate Professor of Biology at Whitman College.
Table of Contents
Contents Preface 1. What Made Me Do It? [earlier title: Why Did I Do It?] 2. Back to the Congo 3. Trapped in Limbo 4. The Flooded Forest 5. Neighbors, Nets, and Nothing 6. The Red Snake 7. A Bottle of Snakes 8. A Day of Monsters 9. Time to Go 10. Red Tape Revisited 11. I've Got to Go Back [earlier title: I Need to Go Back] 12. Return to the Likouala 13. This Is Impongui 14. Snake Medicine 15. Making Herpetologists 16. The Home Stretch 17. A Stressful Day 18. Kende Malamu (Go Well) Appendix: (TENTATIVE) Reptiles and amphibians of the Lac Tele Community Reserve, Likouala Region, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville)
What People are Saying About This
This is what exploratory natural history in a remote place, embedded in a very different culture, is really like--frustrating, confusing, scary, and fraught with prospects for failure. Jackson tells the truth even when it doesn't necessarily reflect well on her, and did I mention she's a small woman working in places where, I'm not kidding, most male herpetologists wouldn't dare to go? Mean and Lowly Things is genuine adventure, without the swashbuckling!
Harry W. Greene
This is what exploratory natural history in a remote place, embedded in a very different culture, is really like--frustrating, confusing, scary, and fraught with prospects for failure. Jackson tells the truth even when it doesn't necessarily reflect well on her, and did I mention she's a small woman working in places where, I'm not kidding, most male herpetologists wouldn't dare to go? Mean and Lowly Things is genuine adventure, without the swashbuckling! — Harry W. Greene, Cornell University Professor and author of Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature
Mark W. Moffett
This is the sort of book that makes hardcore field biologists cry out, "take me to the rainforest." For the rest of you, enjoying the sanity and comforts of the armchair adventurer, I suggest you hang on and enjoy the ride. — Mark W. Moffett, Research Scientist, Smithsonian Institution and recipient of the Lowell Thomas Medal of the Explorer's Club
Meg Lowman
Indiana Jones, step aside! Kate Jackson is an intrepid adventurer and explorer, and her passion for research, discovery, and snakes resonates from every page of this gripping account of a woman in science. --(Meg Lowman, author of Life in the Treetops and It's a Jungle Up There)
Marty Crump
Kate Jackson's field memoir detailing her experiences in the Republic of Congo is a delight that thrills and informs the reader. In relating her adventures conducting a herpetological survey and collecting venomous snakes, she brings to vivid life the harsh realities of fieldwork with its frustrations and disappointments. We're with her as she battles loneliness, parasites, and uncertainties and adapts to a foreign culture. And we share her personal highs and the swamp forest's allure. Bravo to this intrepid herpetologist! --(Marty Crump, author of Headless Males Make Great Lovers and Other Unusual Natural Histories)
Marty Crump
Kate Jackson's field memoir detailing her experiences in the Republic of Congo is a delight that thrills and informs the reader. In relating her adventures conducting a herpetological survey and collecting venomous snakes, she brings to vivid life the harsh realities of fieldwork with its frustrations and disappointments. We're with her as she battles loneliness, parasites, and uncertainties and adapts to a foreign culture. And we share her personal highs and the swamp forest's allure. Bravo to this intrepid herpetologist!
— Marty Crump, author of Headless Males Make Great Lovers and Other Unusual Natural Histories
