The large land-bridge island that Ambai’s called home was thought to be fairly well-known regarding biodiversity, but was relatively “unimportant” since it was thought to hold no endemics—plants or animals that occur only there. My first published paper, in 1991, was on the reproductive biology of a poorly-known species of microhylid frog. With my friends’ intimate knowledge of the forest, several other papers followed including new species descriptions of several fishes and frogs. In fact, we “discovered” two freshwater fishes and one marine fish as a direct result of this language learning. Of course, my Ambai friends knew all about them long before science got to them. These and a number of frog species all turned out to be endemics—restricted in range to the Ambai homeland. These discoveries just the beginning.
The science/indigenous knowledge marriage led, for many Ambais, to a deeper knowledge and appreciation for their environment...
