30 
THE CORAL TRIANGLE: HEARST BIODIVERSITY EXPEDITION 
various venues by us and partners at Conservation International and have been shared with the 
Provincial Governor of Batangas and all local municipal mayors. The recommendations are in the 
process of being considered and implemented and in fact have led to discussion of extending the 
protected area well beyond the six proposed additions. 
Terrestrial Component 
The land-based team explored several dormant volcanoes on southern Luzon that still had a 
large percentage of intact forest. (It is estimated that only five to eight percent of the primary for¬ 
est of the Philippines remains.) The four peaks studied, Mt. Malarayat, Mt. Makiling, Mt. Bana- 
haw, and Mt. Isarog, had aU been explored previously to some extent, but never by an integrated 
team of botanists, entomologists, and (for some of the sites), vertebrate zoologists. 
Entomologists set pitfall traps, wielded nets, and set up sheets with lights after dark to attract 
nocturnal insects. Academy arachnologist Charles Griswold sprayed cornstarch on spiderwebs to 
better photo-document the shape of the webs, which is an important characteristic for differentiat¬ 
ing among groups of spiders. The botanists collected specimens from a variety of elevations and 
transferred them into field presses before bringing them back to the herbarium on the UP Los 
Banos campus, which served as headquarters for the terrestrial team. Academy scientist Jim She- 
vock and the Filipino bryophyte specialists collected mosses, placing them in individual packets 
for drying. The herpetologists and mammalogists turned over logs and rocks in search of animals, 
and set traps to collect small mammals. 
After 30 days in the field, the terrestrial component also yielded great success, discovering at 
least 100 new species of plants and animals. For example, there had been only one species of gob¬ 
lin spider known from the Philippines before the expedition, and the araclinology group found at 
least 60 different species, so at least 59 represent species new to science or at least new for the 
Philippines. Post-expedition analysis will determine the exact status of all 60. The entomology 
team was surprised that they had some of their best collecting success in the lower-elevation, dis¬ 
turbed forests near the university campus. 
The Deep-sea Component 
The deep-sea team boarded the BEAR research vessel on May 28 for eight days of intensive 
sampling using trawls and traps. The team included scientists from BEAR, UP, the National Muse¬ 
um of the Philippines, and the Academy. The first trawl collected some remai'kable corals, worms, 
cmstaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, and fish, boding well for the success of the deep-sea compo¬ 
nent. At the end of each day’s cruise and trawling, the team would set an overnight line of 20-30 
plastic-mesh fish traps at various depths, to be retrieved at first light. The traps inevitably contained 
a rich variety of crustaceans, fish, and mollusks. Some of the most impressive discoveries includ¬ 
ed a new species of swell shark, two new snake eels, two new hagfish species, and a recently named 
giant isopod that looks like one of its pillbug cousins on steroids, with the face of an alien. During 
the eight days of deep sea trawling and trapping, the team collected at 39 stations ranging in depth 
from 40 to 2,300 meters, setting new depth records for BEAR and Verde Island Passage research. 
Approximately 100 new species of marine animals were collected, including six new species of 
nudibranchs, at least five new species of fish, at least three new species of crabs, several new 
worms, a wood-eating starfish, and several new barnacles. In addition to the remarkable new 
organisms found, one of the most consistent and disturbing aspects of our studies was the preva¬ 
lence of plastic and other trash in every trawl that was brought to the surface — even from the 
deepest stations sampled. In some trawls, there was actually a greater volume of trash than of liv¬ 
ing organisms. Based on some of the labels on the trash, much of it had come from metropolitan 
