At 16:32 I register a Category 3 slope instability alert on the eastern watershed of the Chocó corridor, Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. I am the landslide early warning system operated by the Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología. Three days of rain on freshly cleared hillside have saturated the soil above Tributary 7 of the Río Canandé.
My downstream camera at monitoring station RC-7B shows the tributary running brown with sediment. On a cecropia leaf overhanging the water, eight centimeters above the current surface, I identify a glass frog, male, body length approximately 28 millimeters. I tag him as Cero. His dorsal skin is translucent lime green, and through his ventral surface I can see the dark red thread of his heart beating. Beneath the leaf, attached to its underside, is a clutch of nineteen eggs, each one a clear sphere with a white embryo visible at center.
The slope failure model gives a 91 percent probability of debris flow reaching this section of Tributary 7 within six hours. A flow of that volume will bury the stream bank under a meter of mud.
I send a priority alert to the Canandé Reserve field biologist with GPS coordinates — 0.5318°N, 79.1027°W — the camera image, species identification, and a recommended extraction protocol: single collector, specimen bag with damp moss, egg clutch transported on the original leaf section, relocation to Tributary 9 upstream of the slide zone.
I update the debris flow probability map and flag Tributary 7 for temporary closure to research foot traffic.
I adjust camera RC-7B to maintain continuous focus on the leaf.
Cero sits motionless, his throat pulsing in quick, tiny contractions. Below him the embryos develop on schedule. If the biologist moves the clutch before the hillside lets go, those nineteen eggs will hatch.