Wildflower named ‘extinctus’ rediscovered after four decades

By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

A beautiful South American wildflower named extinctus has been rediscovered after four decades-in the cloud forests of the Andes.

Sightings were confirmed after an intrepid team of explorers ventured into Ecuador's "lost world."

The shrub is small but stunning - boasting flamboyant neon-orange pot-bellied petals. It belongs to a family of herbs.

Gasteranthus extinctus grows in the foothills, where land flattens to a plane once densely covered by trees.

Dr. Thomas Couvreur, of The Research Institute for Development, Montpelier, France, said: "As its name suggests, it was thought to be extinct.

"The last known specimen was collected 40 years ago. It occurs in a small area in the rainforests at the base of the Andes in Western Ecuador.

"The locality was completely deforested by the time of its description in 2000. Despite numerous efforts it was not seen again - until now.

"We undertook a field expedition with Ecuadorian and international botonists to the region in search of this and other endemic species."

Amazingly, they spotted G. extinctus within just two hours of arriving - thanks to its vivid color.

Dr. Couvreur said: "However, it wasn't until the evening, with the help of the whole team, that we were able to properly identify it!"

The cloud forests of the Andes are extraordinary wonders of nature. They are created by humidity moving west from the Amazon - reaching elevations of up to 12,000 feet.

G. extinctus was first found on 10 April, 1981, at an altitude of almost 2,000 feet in an an area called Centinela Ridge.

Nearly 20 years later it was finally given its name - as a warning. Biologists feared it was already extinct.

The region is notorious for being home to a unique set of plants that vanished when its forests were almost completely destroyed for pasture during the 1980s.

The late zoologist Edward O. Wilson named the phenomenon 'Centinelan extinction' in his seminal 1992 book "The Diversity of Life."

It makes the fresh description of G. extinctus in the journal PhytoKeys all the more exciting.

Co-lead author Dr. Dawson White, of The Field Museum in Chicago, said: "Extinctus was given its striking name in light of the extensive deforestation in western Ecuador.

"But if you claim something's gone, then no one is really going to go out and look for it anymore.

"There are still a lot of important species that are still out there, even though overall, we're in this age of extinction."

The small forest floor dweller, which can reach about 18 inches tall, has managed to survive against the odds.

Dr. White said: "The genus name, Gasteranthus, is Greek for 'belly flower.' Their flowers have a big pouch on the underside with a little opening top where pollinators can enter and exit."

The story of Centinela was also an alarm call to the fact more than 97 percent of forests in the western half of Ecuador have been felled and converted to farmland.

What remains is a fine mosaic of tiny islands of forest within a sea of bananas and a handful of other crops.

Co-author Dr. Nigel Pitman, also from The Field Museum, said: "Centinela is a mythical place for tropical botanists.

"But because it was described by the top people in the field, no one really double-checked the science. No one went back to confirm that the forest was gone and those things were extinct."

Since 2009, a series of other searches for G. extinctus were all unsuccessful. Last summer Dr. White and colleagues began combing through satellite images.

Despite heavy cloud cover, they managed to identify a few bits of remaining rainforest. In November, they set foot on Centinela.

Dr. Pitman said: "It was my first time planning an expedition where we weren't sure we'd even enter a forest.

"But as soon as we got on the ground we found remnants of intact cloud forest, and we spotted G. extinctus on the first day, within the first couple hours of searching.

"We didn't have a photo to compare it to, we only had images of dried herbarium specimens, a line drawing, and a written description, but we were pretty sure we'd found it based on its poky little hairs and showy 'pot-bellied' flowers."

There were mixed emotions upon finding it. "We were really excited, but really tentative in our excitement - we thought, 'was it really that easy?' he explained. "We knew we needed to check with a specialist."

They took photos and collected some fallen flowers, not wanting to harm the plants if they were the only ones remaining on Earth.

Taxonomist Dr. John Clark, an expert in Ecuadorian plants at The Lawrenceville School, New Jersey who confirmed G. extinctus was still very much alive.

Many more individuals were then spotted as the researchers visited other forest fragments - collecting further specimens, including leaves, for DNA analysis.

They were also able to validate unidentified photos posted on the community science app iNaturalist as being G. extinctus.

The plant will keep its name because biology's code of nomenclature has very specific rules around renaming an organism - and G. extinctus' resurrection doesn't make the cut, said Dr. Pitman.

It remains highly endangered - but the researchers say they found plenty of reasons for hope.

Dr. Pitman said: "We walked into Centinela thinking it was going to break our heart, and instead we ended up falling in love.

"Finding G. extinctus was great, but what we are even more excited about is finding some spectacular forest in a place where scientists had feared everything was gone."

They are now working with Ecuadorian conservationists to save where G. extinctus and the rest of the spectacular Centinelan flora lives on.

Dr. White said: "Rediscovering this flower shows it is not too late to turn around even the worst-case biodiversity scenarios, and there is value in conserving even the smallest, most degraded areas.

"It is an important piece of evidence that it is not too late to be exploring and inventorying plants and animals in the heavily degraded forests of western Ecuador.

"New species are still being found, and we can still save many things that are on the brink of extinction."

Straddling the equator, the Andean cloud forests of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru are among the most fragile and complex on earth. They are considered the world's greatest conservation priority.

Environmental conditions change rapidly. Consequently, plant diversity exceeds that of the Amazon.

For example, the cloud forests are home to the greatest number of orchids. Ecuador has over 4,000 species - with 1,300 found nowhere else on Earth.

Dr. Couvreur added: "The few rainforest patches that remain in this part of Ecuador are increasing sources of biodiversity and must be urgently protected."

A 'biological annihilation' of wildlife in recent decades means a sixth mass extinction in Earth's history is already underway - and more severe than previously feared.