Chapter 3. Safari and Termite research

The Start of Our Research

When our research finally began, everything seemed fairly straightforward.

We selected a patch of land that looked completely empty — a stretch of open ground in the vast African savanna. To us it was simply a quiet place where we could run our experiments undisturbed. We fenced off the area with barbed wire to keep curious wildlife away and got to work.

But what looked like empty land to us turned out to mean something very different to others.

Before long, Maasai from nearby villages began to appear. They were clearly not pleased. How could we possibly think we could fence off a piece of their land? To them this was not wilderness or “nobody’s land,” but grazing ground their cattle had used for generations.

We decided to deal with the problem immediately.

Together with the caretaker of the nearby prehistoric site — who kindly acted as our interpreter — we visited the head of a Maasai village. We explained what we were actually doing there: studying termites, the small insects that eat the grass their cattle depend on. If we understood how these termites worked, the knowledge might also be useful for them.

To our surprise, the argument worked.

The village chief sent messengers to neighboring villages explaining that we were doing useful work and should be left alone. From that moment on we had no problems at all with the local community. On the contrary — sometimes curious visitors stopped by to see what these strange researchers were doing out on the savanna.

And what were we doing?

Studying termites. Lots of termites.

From fields dotted with tiny holes they would emerge — hundreds at a time. They would walk a few meters across the ground until they found a suitable tuft of grass. There they methodically cut the blades into small pieces. Each tiny fragment was then carried in their jaws back to their underground colony.

For several weeks the activity would take place in exactly the same spot.

Then suddenly it would stop.

A little later it would begin again somewhere else in the field. Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night.

We wanted to know exactly when the termites were active, so we decided to monitor the area around the clock — twenty-four hours a day. The research site lay about five kilometers from our camp, which meant we had to take turns watching.

One evening my daytime shift had just ended. Oliver was about to take over the night shift. As the sun sank below the horizon, I started walking back toward camp through the growing darkness.

And then I suddenly found myself face to face with a cobra.

It lay right across the path, half raised, hissing.

My heart hammered so loudly it seemed to echo in my throat. Instinctively I jumped backward.

The sand beneath my feet was loose and powdery — exactly the kind of ground where snakes cannot easily glide away. In such situations they are more likely to attack than flee. Later I understood why the Maasai make so much noise when walking at night: singing, talking, tapping their sticks together. Snakes hear you coming and disappear before you arrive.

Fortunately, this encounter ended well. The cobra slowly lowered itself and eventually slid away into the darkness.

Still, I knew it could easily have ended very differently. If it had bitten me, the outcome might not have been good.

That evening I drank an extra beer back at camp.

The next time we visited Nairobi, we immediately bought a snakebite kit. And from that moment on, whenever we walked at night, we made plenty of noise ourselves.

Another lesson learned.

At first our supervisor, Leuthold, drove us to the research site by car. Later we were given bicycles to cover the five kilometers between the camp and the study area.

That sounded like a good idea — until we encountered a plant the locals called “kramkram.” Its fruits were covered in rock-hard spines that pierced our bicycle tires with ease. Before long we were fixing punctures constantly.

So eventually we went back to doing everything on foot.

Fortunately, those walks were never boring.

Along the way we regularly encountered wildlife: giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, wild dogs, and various species of antelope. Sometimes even at night.

Occasionally we woke up to a strange sound — a heavy thump, as if something large had dropped onto the ground.

Later we discovered what caused it.

When giraffes graze, they spread their front legs wide apart to reach the grass. When they straighten up again, they often make a little jump to rebalance their long bodies. When their front legs land again, they make that dull thumping sound.

From our hut we could see their silhouettes against the star-filled sky — long necks rising slowly above the savanna.

It was a magnificent sight.

Meanwhile our research was becoming more and more interesting.

One day we discovered something that had never before been demonstrated in termites: these insects used the sun — and even the moon — to orient themselves while searching for food. This type of navigation had already been observed in ants, but not in termites.

If true, it was a significant finding.

But it meant we had to prove it carefully.

Our Swiss scientist turned out to be not only a dedicated researcher but also someone who genuinely supported his field team. At first we had expected to work under fairly basic conditions. Yet as he saw how enthusiastically we threw ourselves into the project — digging for nests, tracking colonies, mapping termite activity — he realized how demanding the work actually was. Many of our study sites were scattered kilometers apart across the savanna.

After we shared our suspicion about the termites’ orientation behavior, he surprised us.

Instead of bicycles, he arranged for us to use a car.

To us it felt like pure luxury. What had once taken hours over bumpy dirt tracks could now be done much faster. The work became more efficient — and far more enjoyable.

Suddenly a whole new world opened up. We could visit more colonies, travel longer distances, and even drive to Nairobi to buy supplies. At the same time, it gave us the freedom to explore the landscape around us: endless savannas, scattered acacia trees on the horizon, and the occasional herd of Maasai cattle.

What had begun as a simple termite study was slowly turning into something much larger.

An adventure.

And with that car, it felt as though we had become just a little more part of the vast African landscape in which we were working.

In the weeks that followed we carried out countless experiments: changing light conditions, observing the directions the termites walked, and collecting data at every possible hour of the day and night.

Eventually, we succeeded in proving it scientifically. And so our first scientific publication was born — beginning on a piece of savanna we had once mistaken for empty land, among cobras, giraffes, and millions of termites.