mainly mongoose

An embarrassing confession...

2012-02-18T13:24:00.001+02:00

We all make mistakes, right?
There’s no call for embarrassment.
But some mistakes make you feel sillier than others...

Now I’m not talking about those absent-minded slip ups that everyone makes (they do, don’t they?).
You know, like realising in the supermarket that your shirt’s on inside out or that you’ve forgotten to change out of your mismatched trainers (the red pair’s left shoe is raggedy and the blue pair’s right shoe... Well, the mongooses don’t mind!).

No, the kind of blunder I’m talking about springs from ignorance, ~~pure and simple~~ uncouth and ugly.

I remember my sister discovering that her rural high-school pupils didn’t believe dinosaurs ever existed. They thought that these prehistoric beasts – along with King Kong, Godzilla and the Muppets – were creations of the media.
Well that’s the sort of mistake that I’m guilty of.

It all started when I was pottering about the local newsagent and noticed a stack of glossy, movie-spinoff booklets.
A sweat-streaked Harry Potter glared up from the cover of the top one, below that peeped the earnest blue face of a Na’vi from Avatar, and on a third, two CGI aliens stared nonchalantly off into space. They were lankily humanoid but clothed in a stylised uniform of fur: pure white with chocolate brown insets on their arms, chest and thighs. Disconcertingly golden eyes stared from their smooth black faces, and black elf-like ears peeped from the fur on their heads.
‘What will they come up with next’, I wondered before sauntering on.

But that image kept haunting me; there was something disquieting about it. They were so humanlike, but...
It was as if the artist had melded human facial features with those of a llama or guanaco. It was uncanny. And unnerving.

So you can imagine my shock - on my very first day in Madagascar – when I rounded a bend on a forest trail and found myself face to face with just such an alien. In fact, two real, living, breathing aliens.
Oh, and did I mention the excruciating embarrassment?

Extraterrestrials assessing the chemical composition of Earth’s flora? No, Coquerel’s sifakas (Propithecus coquereli) contemplating lunch. But you can see how one could be mistaken, can’t you? Oh sure you can. Please...

When not impersonating computer-generated aliens, Coquerel’s sifakas hang out in groups of 2-10, in the dry forests of NW Madagascar. Like all sifakas, they're strictly vegan and the ladies rule the roost.

Named after their explosive, hissing alarm call (shee-fark!), sifakas are the bounders of the lemur world. I’m not being judgemental here; I mean it literally. They’re made to hop. With legs 35% lankier than their arms (the figure for people is 65%), these lemurs leap frog-like from tree trunk to tree trunk, and cling there vertically with their knees pressed against their chests. They’ve artistically long fingers, and utterly outrageous big toes, to clamp vice-like around tree trunks.

A toe of note.

Now if my first encounter with sifakas made me feel like Bridget Jones at the launch of Kafka’s Motorbike, my second interaction was almost as disquieting.

We’d just arrived at Berenty Private Reserve in southern Madagascar after a long, hot morning jolting over crumbling tarmac (last road mending, the 1950s). Trudging through the heat and dust towards the promise of lunch, I glanced up into a huge tamarind tree that overhung the tourist cabins.
There, almost within arm’s reach, was a fluffy white tangle of Verreaux’s sifakas. Pristine white, apart from a Santa’s cap of chestnut brown, they lounged along the tree’s massive branches or hung languidly upside down from the branch tips like an angelic manifestation of spider monkeys. As I gasped, they gazed down at me interestedly, golden eyes bright in their intelligent sooty faces. I can’t begin to describe the emotional impact of their unexpected and incongruous appearance; try to imagine the warmth invoked by fluffy white bath-towels coupled with the enchantment of snow.
Needless to say, I was very late for lunch.

Of the nine sifaka species bouncing around Madagascar, only the Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus verreaux) is not endangered (it’s considered vulnerable). It’s also my favourite (why court heartbreak?).

The Verreaux's sifaka groups at Berenty hold territories of only 2-3 ha (5-7 acres); that means 15 groups of sifaka could ricochet around happily within the territory of one dwarf mongoose group!

Hanging loose. Verreaux's sifakas live in mixed-sex groups where love is free. However, the reigning honcho fathers most of the kids because he dogs the steps of any female on heat.

Now if, like me, your enthusiasm for wildlife is tainted by vices (laziness, for example, or voyeurism), Berenty Reserve is the place to be.

Protected since 1936, this tiny pocket (250 ha /620 acres) of gallery forest is set within a vast sisal plantation (the spiky aloe used to make ‘green’ shopping bags) and is chockfull of lemurs. Alison Jolly began studying ring-tailed lemurs here in 1963, so the furred inhabitants are enchantingly blasé about non-furred primates. You can lounge on your veranda and happily spy on three species of lemur as they blithely scent-mark, squabble or snooze. And of course you can also potter at leisure in the forest, blissfully unchivvied by zealous park guides.

It was certainly a highlight of my trip.

No, not a sifaka, but a typical Berenty scene. Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) and red-fronted brown lemurs also smooch around camp.

High density living is the norm for sifakas. Groups of crowned sifaka (Propithecus coronatus) claim ownership to just 1.5 ha (3.7 acres) of dry deciduous forest (in NW Madagascar) and they advertise possession by smearing around goo from their chest and anal glands.

Sifakas, of course, are famous for another trait. Designed to leap, tree to tree, they aren’t well equipped to negotiate flat land. Bizarrely, they stand up on their lanky hind legs and skip along sideways, twisting their torsos back and forth and holding their arms up effeminately for balance. If you haven’t seen footage of these guys ‘dancing’, treat yourself by clicking here or here.

Leaping lemurs!

'No, I've never heard of the Ministry of Funny Walks.
Why do you ask?'

Let's move it, move it, move it!

Strutting their stuff by day, sifakas kip in the tree tops after dark. But despite this safety measure, being eaten is still a serious problem for them (well for anyone, I guess). Fosas, who specialise in chomping mammals, cunningly clamber up and nab them in the night. Raptors also won't say no to an occassional lemur.
In an effort to evade these lemur-eaters, sifakas employ the usual arsenal of ‘functionally referential’ alarm calls (i.e. they shriek ‘Run!’ or ‘Hide!’ or ‘Get down!’ rather than ‘Harrier-at-10 o’clock!’ or ‘Bloody fosa!’).

What’s interesting is that different populations use the standard calls in different ways. While everyone seems to know that roaring barks warn of raptors (the lemurs look up and climb down), researchers found that playbacks of the iconic shee-fark cry invoked mixed responses.
Coquerel’s sifakas, and Verreaux’s sifakas who lived within fosa territory, believed it warned of ground predators (they looked down and climbed up), but Verreaux’s sifakas living in a fosa-free local just ran away. Growls were even more personalised. Coquerel's sifakas living in places with many birds of prey interpreted a growl as warning of aerial predators, while Verreaux's sifakas residing in fosa-rich habitat thought a growl meant prowling carnivores. The other populations, of both species, associated growls with minor disturbances.
Now this shows that the sifakas learn the meaning of their calls from others, and it lets them adapt calls to meet local needs. But what happens when we come along and translocate animals from one population to another?

'What? He's growling?! It's all Greek to me.'
The diademed sifakas (Propithecus diadema) living in Analamazoatra Special Reserve (aka Perinet) were translocated into the park in 2006 from three different sites (the original inhabitants were hunted to extinction in 1973). They appear to be prospering despite any language barriers.

Like all the larger lemurs, Milne Edward's sifakas (Propithecus edwardsi) are hunted by humans as well as fosas. Although 'fady' (taboo) prevents certain tribes from consuming particular species, it often doesn't prohibit them from catching and selling the animals to people who do. Lemur is a delicacy in city restuarants.

Fossa snack food. Milne Edward’s sifakas bear only a single sprog every second year. 40% of their ankle-biters don’t make it to their first birthday, and only a third reach puberty.

A Milne Edward's sifaka (in Ranomafana National Park) awaiting the arrival of a Hollywood talent scout.

Masked weavers revealed

2012-02-03T23:32:00.001+02:00

If you’ve come here expecting an exposé on the criminal activities of textile workers, you’re in for a disappointment.

This post is about something much less exciting: SEX.

Now I don’t know how you choose your sexual partners, and I wouldn’t dare suggest that anything is inappropriate... But whatever traits turn you on, you can be certain that somewhere out there someone with feathers is already doing it.

Regardless of whether your interest is sparked by a lover’s apparel, their talent in the performing arts, their real-estate holdings, the colour of their footwear (you’d have to be a real booby to go for this), their artistry or – let’s get down to it – the size of their gender-specific endowments (excuse me, I was referring to tail plumes), your tastes don’t differ from millions of birds.

But there’s one group of feathered critters whose predilections are genuinely perverse.
For them, sweaty singlets and wolf-whistles are all the go.
That’s right; construction workers rule the roost in weaver society.

Now if DIY skills were the currency of ardour in humans, I’d be destined for barren spinsterhood (hey, wait a minute, I am a barren spinster...). Although home-building skills may seem a tepid way to woo a lover, it hasn't held back weavers. Around 62 species (all in the genus Ploceus) are out there busily knocking up their edifices, mostly in Africa but also in southern Asia too.
And with all the recent rain, a large proportion of these creatures seem to be doing it right here.

A macho lesser masked weaver (Ploceus intermedius) kitted out for love. He only dons his mask - in bad-boy warning colours - when the ~~talent~~ weather is hot.

Gathering in rowdy hordes in trees overhanging water, the local lesser masked weavers are in a state of frenzy.
Males dash back and forth with long grass stems trailing from their bills, and there’s a constant buzz of chirping and squawking, which swells periodically into a goal-score roar when a flirtatious chick drops by.

Before a weaver on the make can fabricate an alluring boudoir, he must first stake out his own patch within the colony. This involves lunging at intruders and grappling ~~tooth and nail~~ beak and talon with any persistent rivals. Once he's scored an exclusive building site, Romeo gets to work weaving a collection of finely-laced, retort-shaped homes (if you're not a closet alchemist, a retort is a glass flask with a spherical base and a long tapering neck that's bent downward; it’s designed for distilling things). The male’s goal is to distil a harem of lady tenants who’ll considerately raise his chicks for him.

Using only fresh green grass, plucked straight from the clump, he twists and pokes and pulls, entwining the strips intricately, while emanating an air of intense and bad-tempered concentration. As the grass strands dry, they shrink, tightening up the weave and strengthening the structure. But with nest sites at a premium, a male can’t afford to keep any untenanted premises on his books, so pissed-off males demolish nests that have proven unpopular.

In the quest for the most beguiling nest, males also indulge in a bit of landscape gardening, clipping the leaves from all branches near their homespun abodes. This - along with the nest’s funnel entrance - is thought to make things tricky for those iniquitous nest robbers, the harrier hawk and the boomslang.

‘These damn things just keep growing BACK!’

‘Well, that’s an improvement anyway.’

When a lady weaver approaches, all the males get very excited, snatching up a grass stem and dashing to their best construction. Hanging from the base, a hopeful male flutters his wings enticingly, sticks his tail out horizontally and points his beak suggestively into his nest. He also chirps in a frenzied manner (precise translation unavailable, but I daresay you know all the usual pick up lines...).

‘If you come in here, you can see the playroom has a northerly aspect...’

‘I think someone should really tell George that the can-can is so yesterday.’

For any inept handymen out there, consoling themselves that bird's nest-building skills are hardwired anyhow, let me disabuse you. Male weavers must learn their trade.

While yearling females rush headlong into motherhood, their brothers eschew sex for a year or two. These young bloods get together in colonies of their own where they can work on their erections without censure. Experiments show that if adolescent males are deprived of this early practice (by denying them building materials), their DIY skills are seriously retarded. However, just like riding a bicycle (which you may be please to know male weavers cannot do), building prowess - once learned - is never forgotten; even if callous researchers blockade building supplies for years on end.

Slipshod workmanship will not escape the eye of a lady lesser masked weaver. However, the landlord's only responsible for creating the nest’s outer walls; all soft furnishings must be provided by the tenant.

But what does today’s lady weaver seek in a family residence?

Researchers working with village weavers (Ploceus cucullata) found that mothers-to-be aren’t swayed by outward appearances; neatness and closeness of weave are, after all, mere superficialities. What counts is the strength of the materials and the newness of construction. The girls will have no brook with old, browned off nests and, like master chefs, they’re canny at detecting what’s fresh and what’s not. Merely painting a good nest brown will not fool them, although the same cannot be said for males, who are three-times more like to demolish a nest if it’s been artificially dyed brown.

‘Hmm, I do like a Paspalum veneer; it gives a much fresher ambience than the traditional Poa finish...’

‘Yes Martha, I’ll join you in a mo’. That little minx Estella is looking real interested in Number 3.’

Hey, I ain't drowned yet!

2012-01-28T21:21:00.000+02:00

Do you ever have one of those days?
You know, when getting out of bed turns out to be a seriously bad decision?

Well Wednesday (18th Jan) was that kind of day for me.
Things actually started going pear-shaped on Tuesday afternoon, I just didn't notice.
That was when the rain started.

Now rain is good; we need rain.
I’m thoroughly sick of providing halfway housing for dispossessed tadpoles.
OK, I did spend much of Tuesday night emptying drip-buckets, mopping up indoor waterways and rearranging electrical appliances, but that’s only to be expected.
Yet perhaps if someone had mentioned the word ‘cyclone’ I may have been more wary.
Maybe I wouldn't have headed out into the downpour at 5am to collect an Australian friend who was flying into Nelspruit (200 km/124 miles south of here).

The 3 km (1.9 miles) slalom run to the front gate was an eye-opener. Skidding through sticky red mud, plunging into overflowing creeks, circumventing hitherto unknown lakes and careening into culverts was somewhat off-putting. When I finally crept onto the tarred road (with one headlight blearily water-filled and my fan-belt squealing in protest), I thought my troubles were over.

Hmm...
I can’t see anything in this torrential rain.
Did those oncoming cars have their hazard lights on? I wonder..?

Next minute I’m aquaplaning at 100 kph (60 mph) down a road that’s a river. The water is almost 18 inches (45cm) deep and bubbling along at a merry pace. When my tyres finally touchdown, I figure I’d better keep going, since I’m already in it (in every sense of the phrase). So on I chug... and on... and on... milk chocolate water churning against the windows. I’m getting nervous: how deep is this water going to get?
Then looming through my deluge-smeared windscreen are the rabbit-dazzling headlights of a massive truck.
In the centre of the bloody ~~river~~ road!
The behemoth’s horn blares deafeningly and just as I’m thinking my end has come, the truck’s huge bow wave catches my car and swirls it sideways. Shit, shit, where does the tarmac end?? Once I regain steering, I manage to lurch back on to what could be the road.
Oh God!
Can I really reach the airport?

By the time I slew, skid and slosh my way into Hoedspruit (35 km/22 miles from home) I have the demeanour of a druggie in rehab.

I’ll just stop here, calm down and decide what to do, I think.
Oh.
The petrol station is hidden behind Lake Geneva. The supermarket’s car park is an ocean vista.
Maybe not.

But how is an aeroplane going to land in this??

Still unable to see more than a foot in front of my beleaguered windscreen wipers, I decide to flee for home before the road is cut entirely. So back I chug, through hell and high water.

Just as I reach my front gate, the deluge stops. My mood lightens with the sky. I phone the airline: oh yes, the flight touched down right on time. I envision my friend sitting, waiting...
Maybe I gave up too easily.
Maybe I’m just being a wimp.
After all, the water is probably no more than runoff from the actual downpour. Give it a few minutes and it’ll all flow away...
So round I go again and head back.

There’s more traffic about now and big 4-wheel-drives cluster nervously at the edge of the floodwaters, like bathers in winter. Their occupants stare open-mouthed as I zip past them in my little bakkie/ute/truck/van (a 1989, 2-wheel-drive, 1800 Hilux), plunging fearlessly into the swirling torrent (heck, I’ve forded it twice already!).

This time I’m determined not to give up. My grim resolve carries me through rushing, log-toting rivers, over-pouring dams and vast brown lakes. But 50 km (30 miles) from home I’m defeated. Up ahead a long line of motorists sit gazing in dismay at an endless expanse of water. In the middle a single car sits. Its tail lights still blaze defiantly although they’re submerged, and water's gently lapping over its bonnet/hood.

Ahh. Time to head back home.

But I don’t make it home. Just one kilometre (half a mile) from pay dirt I’m forced to abandon my ~~waterlogged~~ trusty car on the edge of a waist-deep beck. After wading through, I squelch home on foot.

Now this should be the end of the tale, shouldn’t it?

I'd love to be able to describe how I snuggled up on the sofa with my dogs and a warm cup of cocoa and listened to the falling rain.

But I can’t. Or rather I couldn’t (hear the rain, or anything else for that matter). You see outside my backdoor a jumbo jet was taxiing. Or at least that’s how it sounded. In reality it was the Oliphants River and it was in FULL flood.

The view from my spare bedroom.
The nice caramelly bit is raging floodwater.

The caramelly bit up close.
Not something you want to find on your doorstep.

Now for those of you, like myself, who didn’t think South Africa suffered cyclones, let me introduce you to the wonders of climate change.
Cyclone Dando made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday the 15th and after successfully inundating 4000 homes decided to try its luck in South Africa. Fortunately its overland trek exhausted the 120 kph (75 mph) winds, but didn't prevent it from dumping 380 mm (15 inches) of rain in the Hoedspruit area (in about 36 hours). The town suffered its worst floods on record; every access road was cut and both the Blyde and Klaserie rivers broke their banks, destroying shops, businesses and homes. Floods swept through the nearby Kruger National Park where several camps had to be evacuated and stranded tourists airlifted to terra firma.

Kruger National Parks’ Sabie River (viewed from the Lower Sabie restaurant). Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Not the best choice for a game drive (the Sabie River showing its teeth). Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

With the rain still bucketing down, I stood gazing at the river racing below my house. Huge waves and eddies churned the water and spume flew high into the air. Enormous tree trunks surfed by as fast as a car on the highway, and breakers crashed against the banks.

When you live on the banks of a major river you formulate plans for this sort of an eventuality. But mine did not involve being car-less.
And NO vehicle could breast the torrent that I’d just waded through.

I looked like I'd have to abandon all my possessions, and just trudge off into the hills with my pets, singing Climb every mountain.

Surveying my house, I was a bit disconcerted to find that I really didn’t mind losing most of its contents (is this one of the benefits of being a hoarder?). But there were my books; and the computer. And all my work equipment.

I spent several hours packing. The moment I opened the front door to move the boxes, my dogs hurtled out, disappearing off into the rain-soaked bush. Was this some eerie animal ‘presentiment’ thing, I wondered? Or just the irresistible lure of displaced cane rats? Sans dogs, I carted my books through the rain to an old shed (on slightly higher ground) and shoved and hauled my ‘valuables’ (in lidded plastic crates) up the slope into the bush.

As the river continued to rise during the afternoon, army helicopters zoomed back and forth overhead, presumably searching for hapless victims stranded by the flood. I stood outside hopefully, looking pathetic, but I guess I wasn’t hapless enough because they just whop-whopped on by. (I’ve since heard about an 80-year-old who sat up a tree for several hours awaiting rescue - OK, her need was greater than mine.)

The Oliphants River roaring past my house (at 3118 cubic metres/110,111 cubic feet per second). Just enough to fill my house - floor to ceiling - in one-twelfth of a second.

My back garden. The little black blobs in the water are the uprights of a picnic table. The top is already scudding its way to Mozambique.

The water continued to rise all evening and I kept dashing outside with my torch to check where the surf was breaking. If it rose another 2 m (6 ft), my house was a goner.

I wasn’t relishing the prospect of sitting out the night on a hilltop in the rain. The pets wandered about restlessly with widened eyes, and my head throbbed painfully from the constant roar. I’d intended to mount an all-night vigil (so as not to wake surrounded by swirling, crocodile-infested floodwater) but tiredness overcame anxiety and prudence. Huddled in a heap, the pets and I eventually fell asleep.

And lo and behold, at dawn the next day we were still there!
And the river was starting to fall.

Yay!

The aftermath. The riverbed below my house now looks ravaged.

The Sabie River a week after the flood. Check out the railings torn from the bridge (on second thoughts you’ll need a magnifying glass; see below instead).

Flood-wracked railings.

Three's a crowd

2012-01-10T14:49:00.000+02:00

‘twas the night before Thursday
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse.

Huh?
THIS house??

Where bushbabies hold nightly gumboot races in the ceiling, cheered on by a squeakery of bats?
Where three species of gecko brawl raucously over the rights to my mealworm colony, and resident gerbils sharpen their teeth - without pause - on my electrical appliances?
Oh, and let’s not forget the live-in toads who are convinced that beetle-hunting is most lucrative deep within my store of recycled plastic shopping bags.

THAT house??
Yep.

Silent as the grave (and the simile wasn’t chosen idly).

What catastrophe has befallen us?
Did my housemates succumb to radio-active fallout from the gnawed microwave? Or maybe deadly spores wafted from the dishes mouldering in my sink? Was our water supply craftily poisoned by delinquent baboons?
No. We simply have a visitor come to stay.

In truth, we’ve had three visitors (all equally ostracized by my roommates) but I managed to persuade the other two to leave.

Now don’t imagine that these houseguests turned up unannounced.
It’s just that sometimes I have trouble understanding the local lingo.
Still, the first warning came through loud and clear.

I was beavering away on my computer on Tuesday afternoon when a large toad hopped by. Now this is nothing unusual as I share my domicile with at least four of the beasts.
Hey, but wait... It’s daytime!
I leapt to me feet in panic.
You see my toads are nocturnal beings, and there’s only one thing that will drag them from their beds before sundown: a professional toad-muncher.

A red toad (Schismaderma carens): snake-detector extraordinaire.

As the toad hurried out the back door, I cautiously crept into the kitchen (from whence the refugee had hopped). On route I passed a panic-stricken gecko, fleeing its daytime haunt behind the fridge.
Not a good sign.
A wary search of the kitchen’s nooks and crannies revealed the culprit: a Mozambique spitting cobra, lurking behind the stove.

Now I’ve written about spitting cobras before (here, here and here). With appalling manners (spitting in the faces of strangers) and a lethal overbite, they’re not the sort of guest you want loitering in your food preparation area. But, fortunately, the judicious application of a broom induced the creature to retreat into a poster tube (ah, one of life’s essentials), and in no time at all I was trudging off into the bush to liberate it.

The following day I was once again plugging away at my computer (see how diligent I am?) when Magic (my husky-cross) leapt up and rushed to the backdoor. We knew that something was loitering immediately outside because its shadow was moving in the strip of light under the door. I was gazing at this dark shape when, suddenly, a thin, black filament flicked, just for a moment, in under the door.
It’s a skink’s tail, I assumed erroneously.

Rainbow skinks (Trachylepsis quinquetaeniata) frequently skitter in and out of my house, hunting for any creepy-crawlies the toads may have missed (or maybe just to taunt the dogs).

Since the skinks are masters at evading canine pursuit, I opened the door to let Magic out.
Standing there on the doorstep was a two meter (6 ft) long rock monitor. Grey and gnarly-looking, it was bent forward with its stubby nose pressed to the crack below the door, and was flicking its long, forked tongue in underneath. I managed to grab Magic’s collar as she lunged for the reptile, and while I struggled to hold her, the monitor took off, racing in a claw-scritching, side-to-side, swayback sort of way for the back fence.

Once rational thought had returned, I sagely concluded that the monitor was hunting skinks, and nonchalantly went back to the computer.
Big mistake. It was not hunting skinks.

The rock monitor (Varanus albigularis) actively pursues its meals, licking up its victim’s scent with its forked tongue. The tongue’s prongs slot neatly into the paired opening of its vomeronasal organ, snugged away on the roof of its mouth.

Some hours later, when I lifted the lid from a mega carton of eggs sitting on my countertop (the carton, not me), I discovered what the monitor was hunting. A very large spitting cobra was coiled neatly among the eggs. The unexpectedness of this rendezvous sent me reeling backwards out of the kitchen, and the wily serpent slipped away beneath an immovable cupboard.

Oh dear.

Hence the complete exodus of my roomies.

Those of us brave enough to remain behind for the night (just myself and the pets) congregated by silent consent in my bed. As the kitchen has no door, we all hoped that a massed pile of big, warm furry mammals would be sufficient disincentive to a roving serpent.

MISSING
Mozambique spitting cobra (Naja mossambica).
Last seen wearing a smug expression,
in the vicinity of my saucepan cupboard.
Photo posted on Flickr by Jeppestown.

My hopes that our scaly tenant would do a moonlight flit were dashed when I went to feed the birds next morning. I discovered it curled up asleep in the spilled birdseed (clearly a strategic thinker). Once again, it exploited its shock-value to zip into hiding. My frantic efforts to find the beast failed, and the pets and I crept about the house on hyper alert, cringing from any object even remotely reminiscent of a snake.

Serpent induced chaos. Emptying all my kitchen cupboards did not reveal the felon.

My state of mind was not improved when I arrived home from my weekly shopping trip to discover my third caller, schlepping on the bed in my spare room.
What was this, a cobra convention??

As much as I wanted to believe that this creature was my overnight guest, its wholemeal-tinted sheen gave the game away (my kitchen resident was decidedly terracotta). Fortunately, this one zipped into the poster tube lickety-~~spit~~ split, but I was still feeling shaken.
The prospect of immediately resuming a snake-hunt was more than I could face.

No, I thought, I’ll just take a wee break; let myself calm down a bit.
I know, I’ll treat myself and open the Christmas package I just picked up from the post office.
My mouth was already watering because it was from my sister (in Oregon USA) who normally sends me candy.

Now I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but siblings – even those you rarely see – have an uncanny knack for ‘hitting the spot’; and not always in a good way. That day was no exception.

Ripping impatiently at the packaging, my heart suddenly stopped. Hidden within the torn wrapping paper - right beneath my fingers! - were the unmistakable coils of a snake!
Oh my God!
I let out a shriek and hurled the package across the room. My dozing pets, seeing a metre-long serpent uncoiling on the floor, careered away in all directions.

It took us all some time to regain our composure.

And there, lying in the middle of the lounge room floor, was a cellophane-wrapped, confectionary snake.
The label read, “The world’s largest gummy snake”.
“Almost 36 inches long” (almost?).
And then, just in case you were worried, “Artificially flavoured”.

While munching belligerently on this snake (delicious, by the way), I decided that this would be a symbolic gesture. No more would I be terrorized in my own home by a mere elongated reptile. As I devoured the snake, so I would annihilate my fear. After all, my houseguest clearly didn’t want to meet me (and was skilled at achieving this) and I didn’t want to meet it. All in all, I daresay we could get by.

POSTSCRIPT:

I didn’t meet our unwelcome tenant again, and you’ll be relieved to know (or at least I was) that all my wild acquaintances have now moved back in. I’m presuming this means that the cobra's made tracks.

Has it gone? I've never been so pleased to see a bushveld gerbil (Gerbilliscus leucogaster) peeping from my cupboard.

Why raw bamboo shoots are a no no

2011-12-31T17:41:00.000+02:00

I was sitting on a wet, slimy boardwalk watching tiny leeches inch their way up my mud-caked boots.
Huge trees loomed all around, their foliage heavy and dripping from a recent downpour. Dark clouds still pressed low, making the forest as gloomy as I was feeling.

The conversation didn’t help.

My companions were debating how long a species could remain unseen before it should be declared extinct.

There was good reason for both the topic and our despondency.

You see we were awaiting the impossible.

How did we get into this predicament? Well we’d clambered up this steep, slippery hillside, in the rainforest of Ranomafana National Park, in the hopes of glimpsing one of the world’s rarest primates. Critically endangered, the greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus) once frolicked across the entire island of Madagascar but today it clings on in just twelve isolated forest fragments. Fewer than 200 of the critters draw breath.

Ranomafana National Park is a 39,200 ha (96,900 acre) tuft of rainforest growing on the bald pate of eastern Madagascar. It was protected after a new species of lemur (the golden bamboo lemur) was discovered here in 1985.

We’d been shepherded up to this isolated spot by our park guide and his posse of ‘wildlife spotters’.
You see gawking at lemurs is big business in Madagascar and Ranomafana (home to 13 species) runs a tight ship.
When you rock up at the park you're allocated an (unexpectedly knowledgeable) guide, who specialises in visiting just one specific lemur group (of each of the common species). The guide's bevy of spotters race off into the forest to locate the beasts, while you saunter along the forest trails marvelling at minutia (bugs, frogs, chameleons, weird geckos, weirder tourists). Then a cell phone trills. ‘They’re found!’ With agitated hast the guide musters any stragglers and chivvies you off to do your gawking.

A minutia. The tree frog, Boophis viridis, or so I was told.

It could be a Martian for all I know.

Another rainforest skulker: a pitta-like ground roller (Atelornis pittoides). Ground rollers raise their families underground and are endemic to Madagascar.

Now I can’t deny that this system is efficient and lemur-friendly (any one lemur group is subjected to gawking for a limited time only). But it’s also surreal.

Lemur home ranges are small, so bands of gawkers are constantly drifting by, like ships in the night, and the forest echoes with excited cell phone conversations. And woe betide anyone who inadvertently stumbles across the wrong group of lemurs. You’re expected to avert your eyes shamefully and hurry on by.

The eastern grey bamboo lemur (Hapalemur griseus) is one of three species of bamboo lemur (also known as gentle lemurs) that call Ranomafana home.

So it was our guide who’d parked us beside a towering stand of giant bamboo while he and his posse sought our quarry. But before he left, he shared a few facts.

He told us that this group of greater bamboo lemurs was the ONLY ONE surviving in Ranomafana National Park.

‘You mean, it’s the only one tourists visit?,’ we suggested hopefully.

‘No, no. There is just one.’

We stared at him non-plussed.

He explained that the lemurs’ nearest neighbours lived 200 km (124 miles) away in a forest fragment on the slopes of the Andringitra massif.

Oh.

We asked how many lemurs were in the group.

‘There used to be eight, but when we last found them, there were only two left.’

‘When was that?’, a brave soul asked.

'Six weeks ago.'

Ahh.

We were still standing gob-smacked, mouths opening and closing like goldfish, when he and his team trooped off into the trees. Our dismay hadn't yet coalesced into cogent thought, so we didn't manage to holler,

‘Hey, why are we squandering our precious time in this park pursuing phantoms?!’

So we waited.

Miserably.

Now don’t get me wrong. Bamboo lemurs are worth investing time to see. They’re intriguing critters. With atypical accuracy, their common name really does reflect their tastes: they dine almost exclusively on bamboo, and giant bamboo (Cathariostachys madagascariensis) usually makes up 80-90% of their munchies.

The problem is, giant bamboo contains cyanide.

To thwart plant-nibblers big and small, many bamboo species stuff their tasty young shoots with taxiphyllin, a cyanogenic glycoside. When digested, taxiphyllin breaks down into deadly hydrogen cyanide. The bamboo’s branch shoots (which thrust up out of the ground like whopping asparagus spears) are the most heavily fortified; in giant bamboo they tote 15-40 mg of cyanide per 100g of shoot.
The lethal dose for humans is 0.5 to 3.5 mg per kilo of body weight.
Fortunately, cooking destroys the cyanide.
Unfortunately, lemurs don’t cook.

Lucky to be alive? If so, this eastern grey bamboo lemur is intending to waft the message to the world. It's smearing its tail with its own personal 'eau de lemur' from the scent glands on the inside of its wrists.

No one knows how bamboo lemurs cope. They're the only primates to specialise on bamboo. Golden bamboo lemurs, who prefer to dine on the branch shoots, routinely guzzle 12 times the dose of cyanide needed to snuff out your average mammal. Researchers have found that the urine of all three of Ranamofana's bamboo lemur species is tainted with hydrogen cyanide (but their droppings aren't) showing that they really do digest and absorb the poison.

A golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus). Feeling a touch of indigestion?

Eastern grey bamboo lemurs sensibly favour bamboo leaves which are relatively low in cyanide. Tipping the scales at less than a kilogram (< 2.2 lbs), they're the smallest lemur to romp about by day.

For those of you fond of Asian cuisine, who might doubt the toxicity of the humble bamboo shoot, beware! Eight people keeled over in a well containing pickled bamboo shoots, blacking out instantly due to the hydrogen cyanide gas given off by the pickles. Two of the victims never recovered, their hearts having failed them entirely. Frustratingly, the research paper fails to address the most obvious question: what were eight people and a load of pickled vegetables doing down a well anyway? Although suspiciously mute about the veggies, the authors do allude to a ‘botched rescue attempt’.

But I digress distressingly.
Back to the rainforest.

We’d been sitting about despondently for around twenty minutes, and conversation had lapsed into a silent contemplation on the nature of loss (or the loss of Nature). We weren’t really listening to the surround-sound screech of frogs, cicadas and other unseen stridulators; in fact most of us were staring off – unseeing - into the eerie, primeval gloom. One of our group, glancing up at the huge bamboo thicket looming above us, said chirpily (in a transparent attempt to lighten the mood), ‘I keep expecting to see fairies or something suddenly pop out.’

And within a matter of minutes they did.

It started as a rustling overhead, and then a clump of bamboo canes swayed wildly as something dark clambered down among them. We snatched up our binoculars and jostled one another for the best view of the moving fronds.
OK, there was some fur...
Oh, and look a tail.
Yes, yes, they’re lemurs for sure... But what sort...?
Oh my God!

The impossible had happened.

Above our heads, the last two greater bamboo lemurs in Ranomafana National Park were nibbling bamboo!

About the size of small house cats and clothed in dark brown fur, they sinuously wound between the bamboo canes. One peered down at us, his bald nose and prominent grey ear tufts giving him a nutty professor look. As we watched, he began gnawing at the woody stem of a bamboo cane. Once he'd made a small hole, he clasped an edge of the wood in his teeth and pulled down a strip to reveal the soft pith inside. This he munched with enthusiasm. Greater bamboo lemurs are alone in using this part of bamboo plants.

Greater bamboo lemurs (Prolemur simus) specialise more exclusively on bamboo than any other lemur. This reliance makes them very vulnerable because bamboo is also coveted by humans. Used as scaffolding, it's often removed from forest remnants, even in protected areas.

Greater bamboo lemurs normally hang out in groups of 7-11 individuals. These two survivors are father and adolescent daughter.

About ten minutes after the lemurs had disappeared further up the mountainside our posse of lemur spotters trudged back. Sweaty and bedraggled, they shook their heads glumly, only to be greeted by an uproar of excited exclamations. As they peered at the images on our cameras, their eyes widened and smiles broke out all round; there was much back-slapping and laughter. I must admit that I was greatly heartened by their obvious delight and relief over the continued existence of their greater bamboo lemurs.

As we slipped and slithered back down the muddy track, we talked of our amazing good fortune in seeing these rarities. But somehow our elation and sense of privilege just wasn’t strong enough to lift the heavy, underlying despair. These creatures were almost certainly doomed.

I found myself wishing that I could give the good luck back; somehow pass the blessing over to the lemurs like a vial of golden Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck).
They were going to need every drop they could get.

Praying for a future?

Holy infants?

2011-12-25T17:12:00.000+02:00

It’s Christmas Day and I’m knee-deep in nativity scenes!

OK, maybe there's a dearth of straw-filled mangers, but angelic infants I’ve got aplenty.

As a kid, one of the highlights of Christmas was braving the crowds of harried shoppers to gawk in the windows of Melbourne’s largest department store.
With my nose snubbed against the plate-glass, I’d gaze open-mouthed at the archaic, creaky animatronics. Above the gum-nut babies, possums popped in and out of velvet tree hollows, owls blinked with glassy eyes and parrots flapped garish wings. Tiny dancing mice circled Cinderella on a barely concealed conveyer, each one twirling in frozen ecstasy.
And of course there was baby Jesus, hedged in by misshapen, nodding donkeys and smiling beatifically at a drummer boy suffering severe stomach cramps.

By today’s standards, this was primitive stuff indeed.
But even the newest of whizz-bang technology can’t begin to emulate what I can see through my windows today.

You see the bush around here knows how to do Christmas.

Decked out in the lushest greens, the foliage glitters and sparkles with a million fairy lights (thanks to yesterday’s rain), and mini Chinese lanterns dangle from every trackside sickle bush.

The sickle bush (Dichrostachys cinerea): Santa's own tree.
The Shona name for this species (mupangara) means 'tassels for the chief's hat'.

Even the tree ornaments are animate.

But it’s the nativity tableaus that are the real treat of the season.

Look beneath the tree here and you’re likely to find a wobbly-legged foal, gift-wrapped in stripes, or a lavishly decorated giraffe calf touching noses with its mother. My own favourites are the drifts of russet daffodils that, on closer inspection, become snoozing impala lambs; just their little faces and black-tipped ears poking above the dew-soaked grass.

Baby baboons ride by like prize-winning jockeys, and the first warthog piglets (who emerged jitteringly from their underground nests last week) trot along in single file with tails erect, and scatter like a flock of startled birds at the slightest threat. As usual, the little brown wildebeest calves arrived only just in time; their sudden entrance into the world as unnerving as the off loading of a school bus.

Now who’s to say whether these charmers have been fathered by Gods?

Like all youngsters, this one's itching for Christmas.

Christmas dinner? Impalas believe devoutly in safety in numbers. Bundled up in huge creches, the lambs move like schooling fish.

Who are you calling a fish?

Christmas is a time for pigging out but, for wee warthogs, speed is of the essence. Mum only turns on the milk for one minute bursts.

Hogging the limelight.

Now, as anyone who’s spent time appreciating the African bush knows, every day here is rather like Christmas.

You set out at first light to pay homage and in return you’re granted an armful of gifts. And to add to the excitement, you never know whether they’ll be socks or a new Lamborghini.

However, during the festive season the lowveld really ups the ante; in fact it's as if I’m living out the Twelve days of Christmas, with a special boon arriving daily.

The other night the porcupines trundled up to my compost heap with a brand new porcupette in tow (isn’t that a wonderful name?). This little blunt-nosed guy shuffled about shyly, pressing itself up against Mum (or Dad or older sibling, since the whole family helps with childcare). I assume he was embarrassed about his extravagant mohawk.

It was on the following day that I discovered two newly minted terrapins – their tiny shells less than an inch across - paddling about in a rock pool (actually more of a puddle) atop an isolated granite koppie.

The sprogs of marsh terrapins (Pelomedusa subrufa) favour teeny pools to avoid the jaws of crocodiles.

Then on the third day, while walking with Bugbears, I accidently flushed a family of large-spotted genets. Springing lithely from their tree stump home, the three youngsters scrambled up a nearby marula tree. Crumple-eared and blinking myopically, they clung teetering by their claws, waiting for me to leave. These breathtaking (if sleep-interrupted) carnivores are softly furred in flamboyant polka-dots and sport luxuriously ringed tails. They're strict night owls and it's the first time I've glimpsed them by light of day. Of course, with my usual aplomb, I failed to capture them on film (or should that be on digit?).

A large-spotted genet (Genetta tigrina) masterfully photographed at Cincinnati Zoo.
Posted on Flickr by West Chester Dumonts.

And then of course there are the four young silver-backed jackals who sit around outside their termite-mound den each morning, disconsolately scratching their fleas. Presumably Mum has hussled them outside to play so she can spend quality time with her new litter.

Do you think she'll let us back yet?

I can’t help but wonder what I'll find next?
Five gold rinkhal eggs?
Five baby unicorns?

Come to think of it Halcyon’s reigning monarch, Jasmine, has just produced five tiny pups...
But don’t let me get started on mongoose pups...

‘See Dad, I could be a tree-top angel!’
Keid, an ambitious dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula) pup, chaperoned by his older bro, Flame.
Photo copyright Cleo Grieve.

All in all, there’s nowhere in the world that I’d rather spend Christmas.
And I wish upon you the same blessing.

I think I'm going cuckoo

2011-12-13T16:29:00.000+02:00

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing
A voice, a mystery.

Wordsworth (who clearly didn't live around here)

Firstly, let me point out that this post is not about lemurs.
In fact it isn’t even about Madagascar.

I’m taking a break from my lemur litany to indulge in a bit of a gripe.

I need it.

You see my neighbourhood ‘invisible thing’ is driving me to distraction.

I’m sure you know how it feels to be assailed by an apparently innocuous sound, endlessly repeated.
Whether it’s the plink of a dripping tap or a tune circling in your mind, incessant repetition can push the sanest of us into madness. (And after eight years as a recluse, sanity is not my strong suit.)

My own personal bugbear comes feather-coated. He swept in about a month ago, all fresh and perky after a winter vacation in equatorial Africa. Dressed elegantly in soft grey, with a waistcoat of pinstripes and salmon cravat, he’s far too dapper for his slightly embarrassing moniker: the red-chested cuckoo (Cuculus solitarius).

Like other cuckoos, the red-chested (Cuculus solitarius) is dressed to impress. His slick hawk-like shape, raptorish eye-ring and sparrow-hawk chest stripes are no accident. Experiments show that the stripes alone are enough to intimidate potential cuckoo-rearers, allowing the wearer access to nests. Photo by Johann du Preez.

My red-chested cuckoo is out for a good time.
Having staked out a bachelor pad in the trees along the river, he dallies at special ‘song posts’ hidden in the foliage (essential, to avoid the shot-gun blasts of irate listeners) and sends forth his message. Repeatedly.

Now his descending, three-note call is not unpleasant per se (you can listen to it here).
But repeated stridently - at one second intervals – for hour after hour after hour, it’s simply soul destroying. And don’t imagine that nightfall brings relief. Mere darkness is no deterrent to a red-chested cuckoo on the make.

Tossing and turning sleeplessly, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder the purpose of his incessant advertising. Is he warning off rivals or serenading the ladies? At the risk of eroding your sympathy, I’ll admit (solely for scientific purposes) that he does occasionally take a break; sometimes for several days at a stretch (ah, blessed relief).
But this is weird behaviour for a bird that defends its territory with song. Does he only engage in operatics when he has an audience?
I’ve come to the conclusion that what he’s really shouting is,
“Have I got a nest for you!”

You see, in red-chested cuckoo society, it’s the male who screens prospective foster parents. When not driving innocent bystanders insane, he skulks about spying on the neighbours. Once he spots a happy couple preparing their nursery, he hurriedly leads (one of) his true loves to the spot and helpfully distracts the parents-to-be while she sneaks in and lays an egg. To make the crime scene less conspicuous, she then scoffs a resident egg (why waste a good egg?).

Like all his kind, this cute red-chested cuckoo chick won his spoiled, only-child status by murder (struggle, push, shove... ‘Oh look, chick/egg overboard. Now how did that happen?’).
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

As I’m sure you know, cuckoos produce eggs that look similar to those of their victims to assist them in their evil egg-switching.
This is all good and fine if you’re a cuckoo species that freeloads on only one type of bird. But my annoying red-chested cuckoos don’t put all their eggs in one basket (that way, they could become extinct... or so I fantasize).
No, my cuckoos foist their ankle-biters off on to 18 different species of sucker, all of whom produce very different looking eggs. So how do the cuckoos mix and match?

Well not all red-chested cuckoos are born equal. In any one place, you’ll find several different races (called gentes), each of which specialises in hoodwinking just one particular host, and produces the eggs to match.
But how do the cuckoos maintain this racial purity? What happens when a girl from the Cape robin gens (gens is the singular of gentes) is swept off her feet by a boy from the wagtail gens. Will the couple’s daughters ever find a suitable nest for their miscegenated eggs?
Alternatively if maiden cuckoos always abide by family tradition and only choose lovers from within their own gens (i.e. there’s no racial mixing), surely the races are really different species?

The answer is devious. Unlike mammals - where it’s the male who totes the whacky, sex-defining Y chromosome - birds do things the other way around. Macho birds carry two Z chromosomes while the ladies are ZW. Egg colour is craftily encoded on the W chromosome, so it’s always passed on – unadulterated - from mother to daughter regardless of what or whom Dad is (as he can only ever contribute a Z chromosome).

A recent study of greater honeyguides (OK, not a cuckoo but employing the same nefarious means of reproduction) found that their gentes are extremely ancient. When the researchers looked at the honeyguides’ mitochondrial DNA (which comes only from Mum) they found that the gentes had remained entirely separate and unsullied for millions of years. But when they looked at the chromosomal DNA (which comes from both Mum and Dad) they could find no difference between gentes (because everyone happily interbreeds).

The eye of the beholder. Some gentes of red-chested cuckoo lay eggs that don’t match those of their target species. So why do the victims accept them? Unlike us, birds are able to see near ultraviolet wavelengths. When researchers examined the eggs using ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometery, they found that they were similar. Oops.
Photo by Johann du Preez.

Among their other weird traits, cuckoos are renowned for their fondness for hairy caterpillars (they munch them, not keep them as pets). They develop this predilection only in adulthood because no sensible foster parent offers a chick such noxious fare. Furred caterpillars are eschewed by almost all birds thanks to their urticating hairs (I love that word; it means ‘stinging like a nettle’). The tips of these hairs are detachable and dispense irritating poison. Although cuckoos scrub their dinner thoroughly (you can see footage here), the lining of their gizzard still ends up bristling with cactus-like spines. To rid themselves of these, European cuckoos slough off and regurgitate bits of mucous membrane lining (a trick most of us employ only after dining on dodgy prawns).

Local cuckoo food.
Who wouldn't want one as a pet?

It was perhaps this ability to stomach noxious things that encouraged our ancestors to link cuckoos with wedlock. The sceptre of the ancient Greek goddess of marriage is normally topped by a cuckoo rampant, and folklaw stipulates that to hear a cuckoo is good luck for those about to tie the knot, and a portent of adultery for those already wed. Since I fall into neither category, I’ll opt for the alternative claim: the number of cuckoo calls you hear signifies the number of years until you marry or die (whichever comes first).

By my calculation, I should still be going strong in 9011.
How long my sanity will last is another question entirely.

The world's cutest mammal?

2011-12-03T16:33:00.000+02:00

There are surely many contenders for this title.
But up there with the best of them are mouse lemurs.

Now mouse lemurs don’t get much publicity. Compared to the hype dealt out for kittens, koalas, puppies or pandas, mouse lemurs suffer a media blackout. In fact, their only real public appearance was in the animated movie Madagascar, where Mort - the mouse lemur - was ‘Plan B’ should the lion Alex find sushi unpalatable.

Mort from Madagascar. Apart from his diminished dentition and propensity for bawling (oh such blatant exploitation of our nurturing instincts), he’s a reasonably accurate rendition of the mouse lemur genus (Microcebus).

As their name suggests, mouse lemurs are petite. They’re actually the world’s smallest primates. Pop them on balance (the scales-of-justice type) and you’ll need three of the little blighters to counterbalance one pygmy marmoset (and I know you thought they were teeny).

Being so eminently bite-sized (30-70g/1-2.5 oz depending on the species), mouse lemurs only come out under cover of darkness. So if you want to see one, you must venture out by torchlight.

My first encounter with a mouse lemur took place in a thicket of ‘spiny forest’ at Berenty Reserve in southern Madagascar. Now skulking about in the dark in a habitat that’s renowned for its thorniness isn’t actually as unpleasant as it sounds. In fact, for someone accustomed to the weapon-toting plants of Africa (designed to decorticate rhinos, elephants and giraffes), Madagascar’s thorny scrub is something of a cake walk. We’d only begun edging our way through the prickles when a searing flash of eye-shine leapt from the darkness. There, just at eye-height, crouched in the spiky shrubbery, was a stunning little animal.

A small piece of fluff with huge radar ears and large soulful eyes, it sat gazing at us, swivelling its ears back and forth (independently) as we appreciatively ‘ooohed’ and ‘ahhhed’. Its was a grey-brown mouse lemur (Microcebus griseorufus) and a ringer for a lesser bushbaby (although a third the size and more... well, mouse-shaped). As it sat there tremulously, looking at us with huge puss-in-boots eyes, it seemed so small and vulnerable I began to worry about our intrusion upon its life. Should we really be shining spotlights into those fathomless eyes?

It was at this moment that a moth fluttered down into the pool of light. With lightening speed, the little lemur reached out and snatched the insect from the air. Clasping its victim tightly in one fist, it bit off the head, and - still gazing at us - sat chomping away (very succulently) with its sharp little teeth.

Er, well maybe not quite so innocent and vulnerable...

My inept photograph of a grey-brown mouse lemur (Microcebus griseorufus). Fifteen species of mouse lemur haunt the forest (remnants) of Madagascar (ten of these were described since 2000).

Another of my out-of-focus photos of a grey-brown mouse lemur. Although quite svelte in October (after the cool dry season), mouse lemurs indulge in ‘opportunistic fattening’ (a concept I’m familiar with). They can double their body weight during the wet season, laying down fat in their tail (which I’m also familiar with).

Now this little mouse lemur was the first of about a dozen that we encountered on a one-hour night walk. I’m ashamed to say that we started greeting the flare of eye-reflected torchlight with,

“Oh, it’s another grey-brown mouse lemur.”

You see mouse lemurs favour high density living where conditions are good (up to 300 per sq km/780 per sq mile). Nevertheless, we only met singletons because they prefer to go a’hunting (mostly for bugs and fruit) alone.

But don’t you start imagining that they lead solitary lives. Mouse lemurs enjoy a social network that’d rival anything on Facebook. Like elephants, the girls stick together in big clans of grannies, daughters, aunts and nieces; all sleeping snuggled together by day (up to 16 per tree-hollow for grey mouse lemurs). Friends and rellies not only huddle and groom one another, they happily suckle each other’s sprogs. Even the guys, who head out to seek their fortune as adolescents, tend not to sleep alone. This saves on heating bills: mouse lemurs dozing in pairs use 20% less energy and trios enjoy an energy-saving of 40%.

When times are tough, grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) know how to wind down. Day or night, they can slip into torpor, dropping their body temperature to 12 C (54 F). These daily bouts of indolence (which last an average of 9.3 hours) reduce the lemur’s calorie needs by 38%. Of course, they can also opt for proper hibernation (and most females do).
Photo by Joshua Bousel.

The hazards of the night. Owls, like this white-browed owl (Ninox superciliaris), are very fond of mouse lemurs. In parts of southern Madagascar (e.g. Beza Mahfaly) they munch their way through a quarter of the population annually.

This is all well and good, but mouse lemurs kip in lots of different hidey holes, so how do potential bedfellows reunite after a night of solitary hunting?
They snoop and sniff.
Mouse lemurs don’t possess scent glands but they make the most of what’s on hand (literally). Saliva, faeces, urine and genital secretions are all smeared about strategically, to inform noses-in-the-know of each lemur’s identity, libido, property rights and level of alarm. Oh, and these fragrant little lemurs also like to urine-wash (the term says it all).

However, it’s acoustically that mouse lemurs really come into their own. Yodelling eight different types of call (plus a few ultrasonic ones that are beyond us), they coordinate group movements, importune lovers and warn of incoming owls. Studies have found that the ‘contact trill’ given by golden-brown mouse lemurs (Microcebus ravelobensis) seeking a dawn rendezvous is unique and consistent for each sleeping group (so no one ends up in the wrong bed). And the same is true for the seductive warbles performed by male grey mouse lemurs out on the prowl. What’s more, new guys on the block imitate the calls of resident dudes to hasten their acceptance in the neighbourhood!

The grey mouse lemur’s (Microcebus murinus) mating season is seriously hectic, and males prepare by increasing their testes size 5-10 times. The females are promiscuous but accept lovers for only one night. Enticed by a lady lemur’s lascivious trills, Romeos engage in ‘scramble competition’, and the successful ones knobble their successors by leaving behind sperm plugs.
Photo by A J Haverkamp.

I was blessed with another sighting of a mouse lemur in the rainforest of Ranomafana National Park. Here the local guides smear banana along the trunk of a roadside tree so three busloads of tourists can jostle one another for photographic opportunities. However, despite the less than inspiring circumstances, the resident brown mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus), who zipped in soon after nightfall, couldn’t fail to enchant.

Moving faster than the eye could follow, this tiny creature leapt and flitted from liana to branch to trunk to twig. It darted up and down in a fever of constant movement, pausing only for the briefest licks of banana paste. Of course photographing this amazing animal was way beyond my skill, so I’ve included a couple of images taken by more competent visitors so you can share in the experience.

A brown mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus) enjoying its offering of smeared banana. Photo by Leonora Enking.

Brown mouse lemurs (Microcebus rufus) at Ramonafana National Park are known to munch 69 different kinds of fruit (I’m unsure whether this includes the banana). The fat-rich mistletoe, Bakerella, is a mainstay of their diet.
Photo by Frank Vassen.

.

So now you’ve met mouse lemurs, what do think?

Where would you place them on the mammalian-cuteness-scale?

Before deciding, please bear in mind that these little critters are full-grown adults, and it’s quite unjust to compare them to the bumbling, blunt-nosed infants of other species (i.e. all those nauseatingly saccharine kittens and bunnies).

Pillow magic

2011-11-23T16:39:00.000+02:00

I’m not a superstitious person.

I’ve a deep fondness for black cats, and will happily loiter under even the most rickety of ladders.
But sometimes things just happen...

Last Saturday was one of those times.

Now I’m sure you know those cutesy old-wives-tales about placing things under your pillow.

Sleeping on a chunk of wedding cake brings dreams of your future spouse (or devourment by mice), a spoon ensures a snowfall, a bay leaf conjures prophetic dreams and a mirror lets you see the face of your next lover. Oh, and don’t forget that your boyfriend’s unwashed sock will, when slept upon, guarantee he never leaves you (although, by then, you’ll probably want him to).

But these harmless little myths spring from a much darker tradition.
‘Pillow magic’ is big in the shadowy realm of Voodoo.

The idea is that you sneakily conceal a charm (composed of bones, hair, string, herbs, toenails, morsels of black cockerel) within the pillow of someone you hate. (And if you’re pressed for time, you can buy handy little pre-made ‘voodoo pillow bags’ on the internet). This talisman not only disturbs the victim’s slumber, it saps their very life force. Night after night the charm grows stronger (and the victim wastes away) until finally it bursts forth as a monstrous beast or bird (a tupilek) which kills the sleeper. Pretty natty, huh?

Now bearing this in mind, you can imagine my consternation when my field assistant announced on Saturday that she’d found a monstrous beast lurking under her pillow.

Dashing into her room, I confirmed the worst.
Poking out from beneath the pillowcase was a glistening, terracotta coil.
It belonged to a Mozambique spitting cobra who gazed up at me myopically, flicking in and out its little black tongue.

A Mozambique spitting cobra tucked up enjoying some creature comforts. (Yes, I know the colour of this bedding could induce insomnia, without the aid of voodoo, but it was VERY cheap.)

The photograph we failed to take in the heat of the moment.
Photo by Arno and Louise Meintjes

Tradition dictates that all voodoo-related entities must be doused with salt and set alight. But even for someone who suffers a snake phobia, this seemed a trifle harsh.

Yet how were we supposed to remove the beast? Spitting cobras are renowned for their... well, spitting. They can spray venom up to 1.5 m (5 ft) and they shoot for the eyes.

Now if you’ve ever wondered how a cobra manages to accurately target its victim’s eyes (this is something I’ve admittedly taken for granted), science has solved the puzzle.

Brave, goggle-wearing researchers have found that spitting cobras do their stuff in response to a jerky head movement by their assailant.
Sixty-five milliseconds after you’ve unwisely turned your head, the cobra begins to rapidly nod and shake its own head, visually pinpointing your precise location. It then stops nodding, and tracks its head in the same direction (and at the same speed) as your own movement (thus compensating for the moving target). And 200 milliseconds after you first began to move, it squirts a jet of venom from its fangs, jerking its head rapidly from side to side as it does so, to ensure a wide, fan-like spray of eye-searing droplets. (You can read a popular account of this research here.)

While this is all very interesting, it doesn’t leave one feeling particularly optimistic about extracting a spitting cobra from one’s bed.

A Mozambique spitting cobra (Naja mossambica) in action. The species’ venom is more dilute than that of non-spitting cobras. Of course, it can still kill you, if you let the critter bite.

Photo by Steven Gilham.

After some deliberation, we opted for the strategic placement of a postal tube and a bit of judicious prodding with a broom.

Oh yeah, and we squinted a lot.

And - hey presto - it worked like a charm: pre-packaged cobra ready for translocation.

However, while I was busily wielding the broom (and trying in vain not to move my head), I noticed something (even more) disturbing.

The snake was not alone under the pillow.

There was a book there too.

Edging it out from beneath the covers, I looked at the title: ‘Mongoose Watch’ by Anne Rasa.

Now this is a very readable account of a field study of dwarf mongooses carried out in the 1980s. I’d recommend it.

But might it explain our ‘pillow serpent’?

You see everyone KNOWS that mongooses like to kill and eat snakes.

If sleeping on wedding cake can conjure up spouses, and stinky socks, boyfriends, what happens when you snooze on a book about mongooses??

I’ll let you decide.

Not that I believe in superstitions...

Love at first lemur

2011-11-12T17:04:00.000+02:00

Beware supernormal stimuli!

You mightn’t be familiar with the term, but you’ll know the concept:
some innocent critter is sensibly designed to react to a natural trigger (like the colour of its mate) and then we come along and offer it something that’s... well, MORE.

Maybe you’ve seen footage of those songbirds who happily ditch their own eggs in favour of plastic ones because the fakes are bigger and brighter. Or how about the Aussie jewel beetles who prefer to woo beer bottles because they’re soooo much sexier (bigger and more amber) than their mates. (Please note that I’ve shown great self restraint re racist/sexist quips about Aussie males in general).

In a world of computerized special effects, photo-shopped images and plastic surgery, it’s easy for us to fall victim too. We’ve all seen those lovely faces of perfect symmetry, pupils enlarged to whisper of arousal.

Yet despite my awareness, I wasn’t expecting to encounter such chicanery on the first day of my holiday in Madagascar.

With a morning to kill in Antananarivo (the catchy name of Madagascar’s capital), we visited a small park in which rehabilitated lemurs roam free. It was drizzling as we pushed between the overhanging branches, peering through the wet leaves for our first glimpse of lemur.
Then womp. It happened.
I felt my chest contract and, for a moment, I couldn't breathe.

Right in front of me, staring intently into my eyes, was the most amazing animal.

Now lemurs come in a wacky assortment of models. There are tiny, trembling mouse-sized ones and weird etiolated ones with frog-like limbs. There are fluffy orbs with saucer-eyes, aspiring pandas and flamboyant confections of fur, complete with colourful ruffs, tufts and plumy tails.
But the lemur sitting in the tree in front of me was none of these. It was a common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus): a sensible, work-a-day kind of critter. Clothed demurely in soft grey fur that shaded into a sooty face, it gazed at me with huge amber eyes and an intelligent, if slightly rueful expression.
I stared back open-mouthed, and felt as if we’d known each other all our lives.
Oh shit!

Common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus): love at first sight.

A mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz) looking pensive. In retrospect, the name alone should've made me wary.

Now ‘Eu’ in Greek means ‘easy’ or ‘well’ and I can’t think of a better moniker for these lemurs. Each time I encountered a Eulemur species (there are ten in all), I was swept off my feet all over again.

Why? For a start, all their legs are of equal length (I know this doesn’t sound notable but - believe me - it’s no mean feat for a lemur) and they saunter about quadrupedally (as all good mammals should).

But don’t imagine that Eulemurs simply walk, oh no. They sashay along with all the poise of a supermodel. To see them walking toward you along a forest trail is to have your breath snatched away by their... well, panache. Unable to figure out what evoked such a strong air of self-assurance, I finally resorted to searching the literature. And, lo and behold, someone has actually studied the gait of brown lemurs (primatologists are a well funded lot).

These lemurs not only have an unusually long upper and forearm bones, their shoulder blades are astonishingly mobile. At the touch down of a fore foot, a brown lemur’s shoulder joint is extended much further forward than in other small mammals, and this serves to further lengthen its stride. From a human perspective, this exceptionally long stride coupled with a very prominent swing of the shoulders, is something one only ever sees on the catwalk!

The morning after the night before. Eulemurs are unique among primates (except perhaps for humans) in refusing to live in thrall to the sun. They happily gad about both night and day (i.e. they’re cathemeral).

Sipping sap. Red-fronted brown lemurs (Eulemur rufus) adore fruit (and are influential seed distributers) but when times are hard, they’ll also nibble flowers, buds, leaves, sap and creepy-crawlies. They even munch toxic millipedes, rinsing them in saliva and wiping them off on their tails!

The black lemur (Eulemur macaco) has a more macabre relationship with millipedes. This species nips the millipede repeatedly to make it ooze toxin, and then anoints its fur with a toxin-saliva mix (you can see one doing this here). Experiments have shown that the benzoquinones in the millipede secretion repel mosquitoes.

Many lemurs like to socialise, but the brown lemurs (there are six closely-related species) are best seen as the hippies of prosimian society. Unlike most other species (in which the females wear the pants), brown lemurs don’t go in for any of that tense, hierarchical stuff. Their co-ed bands are fluid and truly egalitarian, and no one seems to mind if a few of the neighbours crash for a while. If an argument does break out, brown lemurs respond promptly with loving gestures of reconciliation (unlike the better known ringtailed lemur, in which an escalation of conflict is all you can expect). Oh, and did I mention that they’re promiscuous too, happily bedding all opposite-sexed group-mates? Although no one has actually observed them putting flowers in their fur or driving VW Beetles, I reckon it’s only a matter of time.

Red-fronted brown lemur mums give birth synchronously in September or early October.

Baby red-fronted brown lemurs cling to Mum’s tummy for their first month and then go piggyback. After three months of baby-haulage, Mum puts her foot down and the little one must travel on its own four paws.

Now if you’ve looked at the photographs and you’re secretly wondering why I’m so smitten by such nondescript looking critters, you’re not alone.
In truth, I found my infatuation for these animals quite disconcerting. The problem is, you see, Eulemurs are a supernormal stimuli as far as I’m concerned.

After 15 years studying mongooses, I can’t look into a little mongoosey face without experiencing a warm inner glow. And these lemurs don’t just look a bit like mongooses, they’re equivalent to computer-enhanced mongooses! Not only are they ten times larger (and big is good, right), they also have HUGE lamp-like eyes, and they look right at you with a knowing intelligence that (sad as I am to admit it) mongooses just don’t show.

Now I’m not going to go rushing out and start studying these lemurs.
After all, I’m only attracted to them because of my love for mongooses, right?
I’m sure I won’t.

Well, at least I’m pretty sure...

A common brown lemur (left) and a mongoose lemur (rear) conspiring to break my resolve.

“Mum everyone's watching!” Social embarrassment is rife among immature red-fronted brown lemurs.

Madagascan malaise

2011-11-04T14:34:00.001+02:00

Sorry I’ve been off air lately.
No, I haven’t been ambushed by hungry mongooses or gnawed to death by gerbils.
I’ve been away on holiday: leering at lemurs in Madagascar!

For those of you harbouring secret dreams of one day visiting Madagascar’s wilderness, I’ve got bad news.
You’re too late.
It’s gone.

Yeah, I know you’ve seen the documentaries, chockfull of weird and wonderful critters, all evolving bizarrely in splendid isolation, etc., etc.

But good ol’ Madagascar aint what she used to be.

Madagascar, accompanied by a co-dependent India, made her break from Africa 160 million years ago. Seventy million years later, tired of living out of a suitcase, she severed connections with India (who was determined to continue north) and settled down at her current domicile, 400 km (250 miles) off the coast of Mozambique in southern Africa. For 90 million years everything went swimmingly (or more precisely came swimmingly), and it wasn’t until around the time Jesus began promoting his new cult that humans were faced with the taxing question of whether to scramble or poach their elephant bird eggs. Amazingly, these first human colonists weren’t locals from Africa; they'd paddled in from the Indonesian Archipelago (someone was either VERY lost or VERY brave; and probably both).

The ‘un-African’ houses (double storey and made of brick) favoured by the tribes people of northern and central Madagascar reveal their SE Asian roots.

Madagascar’s own Dark Ages stretched from 500 to 1500 AD. During this period, humans exterminated every large vertebrate on the island (nothing over 12 kg/26 lbs survived). Among the 48 species lost, were three pygmy hippos, two aardvark-like creatures, a giant fossa, two massive tortoises, an out-sized crocodile, a whopping rat, 17 species of giant lemur and 21 bird species, including eight species of elephant bird. Based on tantalising skeletons and folkloric tales, the lost lemurs included a couple of baboon doppelgangers, three ‘koala lemurs’, an aye-aye four times bigger than today’s version, and a gorilla-like beast, weighing in at around 200 kg/440 lbs.

Madagascar’s elephant birds arose from an adventurous member of the ostrich family who managed to cross 400 km (250 miles) of ocean, about 80 million years ago. Aepyornis (reconstructed here) was the heaviest bird the world has known, standing 3 m (10 ft) tall and weighing 450 kg (990 lbs). It met its maker around the 12th century and people are still stumbling upon its eggs.
Photo borrowed from here.

Today, Madagascar has lost more than 90% of its natural forests.
Of course this is not an unusual scenario, but in Madagascar the results are truly ghastly. You see, because the island was once completely wooded, the native birds and beasts aren’t designed for life out in the open. Remove the native vegetation and everyone just ups and goes (dies?). And thanks to all that ‘splendid isolation’, your bog-standard grassland species can’t move in to fill the vacuum, as happens elsewhere. So what you’re left with is a rural landscape that’s TOTALLY devoid of life.
This was a serious shock for me; I’ve never before experienced anything like it. You can travel hour after hour through the countryside without setting eyes on a single bird! If you’ve ever had nightmares about Silent Spring, well that’s Madagascar.

One of the country’s beautiful rural landscapes (at the southern tip of the island), UTTERLY devoid of living creatures. Rice paddies festoon virtually every valley floor in the country, providing a livelihood for 70% of Madagascar's 20 million inhabitants.

Pied crows (above) and yellow-billed kites are happy to dine on human refuse. They’re the only bird species you'll see in many parts of southern Madagascar.

An opportunistic yellow-billed kite. Go bird, go!

Now before you get as dismayed and distressed as I was for a good proportion of my holiday, let me reassure you that fragments of ‘real’ vegetation still remain. They’re small, they’re infested with enough invasive plants (e.g. prickly pear, sisal, lantana, eucalypts) to make a conservationist fall upon his/her weeding scythe, but they’re also – astoundingly - brimful with Madagascar’s iconic beasts. I scurried into these tiny oases with the utter desperation of wildlife-addict going cold turkey.

This little entity - along with Madagascar’s other 234 frog species - is unique to the island. So too are 92% of the country’s 363 reptile species. And although Madagascar makes up only 1.9 % of Africa’s landmass, it's home to more orchid species than the rest of Africa put together.

An astonishing 101 lemur species (this one’s a white-footed sportive lemur, Lepilemur leucopus) still manage to frolic in the remnants of Madagascar’s bush.

Now I’ve thoroughly depressed you with what isn’t in Madagascar any more, I’ll prepare some posts about the wildlife I did manage to encounter. I hope you like lemurs...
I mean what else am I going to do with 700 bad lemur photographs?
(This is a rhetorical question, just in case you're madly thinking up rude suggestions.)

Lemurs: what’s not to love?

The past, the poop and palynology

2011-09-25T22:41:00.000+02:00

Do you ever imagine how your neighbourhood looked before humans rocked up?
How about back when giant ground sloths pottered in your garden, or a Tyrannosaurus bedded down where your house now stands?

It’s only a blink ago, in geological time.

Of course we tend to forget that hopping and squeaking, right outside our doors, are the direct descendents of those monstrous beasts.

Photo posted on Flickr by kibuyu.

OK, I know sparrows are a bit of a comedown, but if you're ever up close and personal with an ostrich’s foot, you’ll never again doubt the dinosaurishness of birds.

Living outside my own backdoor (well actually it’s about 0.5 km away) is a seriously anachronistic beast. Small and inconspicuous with a curmudgeonly air, it cunningly hides its connections to an illustrious past.

You see if you pop back 40 million years here, you won’t meet many of Africa’s iconic beasts. There’ll be no antelopes or zebras, buffalos or giraffes; even the hogs hadn’t tromped in yet. (Of course, there were mongooses; but who could imagine a world without them?).

Back in those days, Africa’s principal veggie-eaters came from an entirely different family; creatures whose great grand-pappy also sired the mastodons and mammoths. These herbivores stomped and frolicked in a carnival of diversity, ranging from diminutive mouse-like critters to rhino-sized brutes; some slick and fleet of foot, others dumpy and lumbering.

So who were these creatures?

Hyraxes.

Yep, that’s right, good ol’ dassies.

Ellies' rellies? Rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis) might look marmot-like but they've more in common with their elephant kin. Both are scrotum-free (their testes are internal), lack a gall bladder, sport impressive tusks, have hoof-like toenails and endure pregnancies that last forever (7-8 months in hyraxes).
Photo posted on Flickr by Koets.

Small human shown for scale.
Photo (taken on the Cape Peninsula) by Danie van der Merwe.

Sadly, the arrival of ruminants put paid to the Golden Age of Hyraxes. Out-competed by these consummate vegans (who would have thought that chewing your food twice could prove so beneficial), hyraxes withdrew to the nooks and crannies of the continent. Today only four species remain.

Possibly because of this fall from grace, rock hyraxes are obstreperous little beasts. Although they live in colonies of up to 35 animals (one macho male with a harem of sisters, daughters and aunts), social relations are strained. Look closely at a mob of hyraxes basking atop a rocky outcrop and you’ll notice that they never sit facing one another; they fan out like iron-filings around a magnet.
When they bounce down off the rocks to graze as a herd (harvesting a different section of their range each day) they also arrange themselves like this. And when a hyrax wants to join a huddle or enter a crevice, it reverses in backwards.

Weapons of dassie destruction.
Fights (mostly between males) can be fatal
due to the hyrax's tusks.
Photo by Brian Burger.

Why?

Well in hyrax-speak, eye-to-eye contact is equivalent to a rude hand gesture and, let me tell you, a pissed-off hyrax is scary. It growls, it gnashes its molars, it erects the black fur around its dorsal gland (a smelly, goo-secreting patch in the middle of its back), it curls its lip and slashes with its gruesome tusks.

Oh yes, despite their heart-warming shape, hyraxes are not heart-warming beasts. Unlike my charming mongooses, they will not suckle one another's pups; heck, they won't even groom each other!

And in the breeding season everything gets much worse due to a massive influx of testosterone: the dominant male's testes increase 20-fold in size!

For the biblical ‘coney’, soaking up the sun isn’t just a leisure activity. Being of ancient origin, the hyrax’s thermostat is faulty so it basks and huddles to stay warm (even ‘stacking’ on chilly nights) and hides in shady crevices when it's hot.
Photo by Steve Krane.

Quite a mouthful. With their top incisors transformed into tusks and their lower ones converted into a grooming comb, rock hyraxes must nip off their veggies with their molars. Their huge gape lets them take bites as large as a sheep’s (as my deformed thumb will testify).

Photo by Damien du Toit.

Baby hyraxes are born in summer (all the girls in a colony give birth syncronously). They immediately clamber up on to Mum's dorsal gland: their favourite hang-out spot for the next five months.
Photo by Paul Genge

A teat of one's one. Infant hyraxes divy up Mum's nipples, remaining faithful to their chosen teat/s for the entire 3-5 month suckling period.

Thanks to the tenacity of this weird little animal (it's only got three hind toes: i.e. proof of weirdness) we can begin to imagine the bygone fauna of Africa. But it’s actually one of the rock hyraxes more mundane habits that’s proven most helpful to our understanding of the past.

Like all sensible creatures, rock hyraxes deposit their poop in latrines. Their toilet facilities are conveniently located close to the colony’s sleeping quarters (usually beneath a rock overhang) and are used, unswervingly, for centuries. The hyraxes not only poop here, they merrily splash pee over the rocks, and when the calcium carbonate in the urine crystallises, it not only creates tell-tale white stains, it cements the droppings in place. Protected from the weather, these piles of poop provide an amazing, stratified compilation of the past.

A pile of poop or an
invaluable historical record?

Now I didn’t realise this until I researched this post, but hyrax middens are the bee’s knees for palynologists (pollen enthusiasts). You see air-borne pollen grains stick enthusiastically to fresh hyrax poop, so by sifting through the layers of stratified shit and identifying the attendant pollen, these diligent souls can ascertain past climates. Thanks to radio-carbon dating we know that a hyrax midden from the Karoo provided 1130 years of compiled hyrax history, and a Namibian midden yielded 2000 years worth of ongoing ~~shit~~ data! But it doesn’t stop there. In dry climates, hyrax dung readily fossilises, and fossil middens have shed light on 20,000 years of southern Africa’s past.

Go hyraxes!

Reparation. "This picnic is mine!"
Photo by Tim Parkinson.

Canniness, cowardice or flipping fraud?

2011-09-12T15:40:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was International Rock-Flipping Day.

All around the world eager naturalists were out there turning over rocks and recording their discoveries.

Now this is such a fun idea, I always want to take part... until the actual day.

Then two niggling little doubts start gnawing at my enthusiasm.

What are these misgivings?
1. I will die.
2. I will kill something.

OK, I realise that plenty of people flip rocks in places where deadly critters slither and scuttle in dim, dank crannies. But heck, I really don’t want to stick my fingers under there!
Last year I managed to avoid the whole finger-fang close-encounter bit by fortuitously stumbling upon a rock monitor snuggled away in a rock crevice. But what were the chances of repeating such a serendipitous find?

I was mulling over the problem when it hit me that this was the same conundrum that I face professionally every day. You see I’m always trying to figure out ways to obtain the data I need without inflicting harm. If the aim of rock-flipping is to document what’s living under the rock, isn't there a less invasive way to get the info? Why not find a rock that’s clearly someone’s domicile and try to coax the resident out?

Now I was secretly very pleased with this solution, because although it was primarily motivated by my aversion to legless beasts, I could sell it as a commitment to animal welfare. Triumph!
Umm... but would it work?

Well yesterday, after visiting the mongooses (who were appropriately hiding underneath rocks to avoid the attentions of a black-breasted snake eagle), I set out on a binge of non-invasive rock-flipping.

Clutching my camera, a Tupperware container of mealworms and a water bottle, I tracked down a suitable rock.

The rock. OK, I know this behemoth is way beyond the provenance of conventional rock-flippers, but someone’s got to hang out under there.

Sloshing some water about, I sat down in front of this rock to wait for the alluring aroma to work its magic.
The first face to appear in the gloom beneath the overhang was that of a lady rainbow skink. She made straight for the puddle.

A female rainbow (or five-striped) skink (Trachylepis quinquetaeniata) enjoying a thirst-quencher. Youngsters and adolescent males also dress in female garb to avoid the aggro of territorial males (who wear orange).

Yum!

When I tossed this intrepid pioneer a mealworm pupa, I was immediately surrounded by zipping reptiles. Among the many skittering rainbow skinks were some slicker, racier models.
These were lady common flat lizards.

Common flat lizards (Platysaurus imperator) are dorso-ventrally challenged so they can squeeze under rocks. They favour high density living, and although girls such as this one lay only two eggs annually, she and her rock-mates put all their eggs in one ~~basket~~ crevice.

“Too much lippy?” Flat lizards can live to fourteen in captivity.

I’d been divvying out mealworms for quite a while before the reigning monarch of the flat lizard colony deigned to emerge. In keeping with his status, he was a little more reserved than his courtiers, but I guess it must be difficult being the centre of attention all the time.

Flaunting the royal colours. His highness defends the rock face upon which his harem and progeny live.

Why flat lizards are flat.

When the mealworms were almost spent, a large shadowy figure appeared beneath the rock overhang.

This giant plated lizard (Gerrhosaurus validus) gave me the evil eye but wouldn’t emerge any further. She belongs to an ancient group of lizards (which includes the girdled lizards) endemic to Africa.

Giant plated lizards are... well... giant. They grow to a whopping 70cm (2ft 4in) and hang around in family groups. If you startle one when it’s basking it'll toboggan down the rock face on its tummy (not that I enjoy doing this, of course). Although these lizards guzzle berries and flowers, they’re also keen hunters, tracking down bugs and small vertebrates using their flickering tongues. My dwarf mongooses often run into them, and while this is a non-event for most of the year, during the summer breeding season (when both species have bite-sized young) suspicions run high. Exactly who chases whom depends on which species’ nursery is nearest. Mongoose pups, just big enough to look after themselves, find these scraps endlessly exciting.

After failing to coax mum from the shelter of the rock, I was just wondering whether to call it a day when junior appeared.

A non-giant giant plated lizard.

This little juvenile shared none of mum’s reticence and came dashing out into the sunshine in pursuit of mealworms. In fact, much to my surprise, it came zipping straight up to me, even climbing up onto my shoe to plead for further handouts.

“Please, please, just one more...”

So all in all, I feel that my non-invasive rock-flipping went quite well.
And all of us are still alive!

You can discover what other rock-flippers found beneath their rocks at Wanderin' Weeta.

God’s own creatures contributing to my under-rock species count.

When your stalker has feathers...

2011-09-10T13:51:00.001+02:00

The parched colours of the dry season.
Photo by Kim Reijs.

When I venture into the field these days it's like I've somehow slipped into a Disney animated classic.

All I need is a ballooning skirt and a tripping walk to make the illusion complete.

Why am I suffering these weird fantasies?

Well, the moment I set foot in the bush, I'm surrounded by clouds of little blue birds, all atwitter with excitement. And then the little animals come creeping out of the undergrowth to gather at my feet.
Magic? Charisma? Sadly no.
You see it's the height of the dry season here. With the bush seared, dusty and leafless, everyone could use a drink.

In an effort to curry favour with my study subjects (essential if I'm to ever find the little brutes), I reward them with a small bowl of water whenever I join a group. And of course it doesn't take long for the other locals to catch on too.

The mongooses crowd around the bowl, some delicately lapping with pink tongues while others dip in their paws and lick the moisture from their toes. Meanwhile a menagerie congregates around us.
Four-footed or two, feathered, scaled or furred, no one can resist the lure of free drink.

Tamarind (HF047) enjoying a tipple.

The tree squirrels (Paraxerus cepapi) aren't backward in coming forward.

Rough-scaled plated lizards (Gerrhosaurus major) disdain rules of etiquette.

Rainbow skinks (Mabuya quinquetaeniata) tentatively seeking that elusive pot of ~~gold~~ water.

"... and then I told that great brute of a mongoose to just clear off..."

The blue waxbills (Uraeginthus angolensis; pictured above) are the most persistent (and impatient). They accompany me as I search for the mongooses, flitting through the bare twiggy undergrowth, peeping vociferously. We collect more and more followers as we go, with everyone complaining loudly about having to wait to wet their whistle. I find this entourage a bit irritating because it drowns out the subtle, tell-tale peeps of my mongooses.

But if the waxbills are annoying, there's one avian devotee that drives me insane. Dressed in humdrum colours, it flutters from branch to branch above my head, ruffling its wings, wriggling its white-edged tail and bobbing about like a creature possessed. It also feels compelled to squawk non-stop. One of my bird books likens its raucous call to the sound of a shaken box of matches, which is pretty accurate if you pump up the volume about 100-fold.

This irksome devotee will dog my steps for hours (OK, for the purposes of scientific accuracy, I'll admit that this is a slight exaggeration). It certainly doesn't retire once I find the mongooses (and they dislike it as much as I do). You see it's not after a mere sip of water. It wants wax.

Yep, you read right: the greater honeyguide is one of only a handful of critters who's able to dine on, and digest, wax (thanks to special microbes in its gut).

But before you start imagining some ghastly Hitchcockian scene, let me make it clear that it isn't after earwax.
This feathered stalker hungers for beeswax.

Its fervent taunting is designed to persuade me to follow it to a likely bee hive. Once there, it expects me to smoke out the bees and heroically retrieve the honeycomb so it can gorge itself on bee larvae and wax (it doesn't eat honey). I've never felt tempted to accept this offer (opening a jar of jam seems safer), but if I'm unwise enough to move or speak in the bird's presence, it gets super excited and zooms off, in a sweeping, undulating flight, toward the nearest hive.

Although greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator) are only about 20 cm (8 in) long, they vex the inhabitants of woodlands and savannahs throughout sub-Saharan Africa. When not guzzling wax or terrorising baby bees, they make do with flying insects.
Photo by Carol Foil.

Now as a zoologist who studies partnerships between species (see an example here), I know I should revere this bird. Collaboration between beasts of feather and fur is rare, and the greater honeyguide is the poster child for such complicity.
But God it's annoying!
And the creature's not easily deterred; honeyguides will invade villages and gardens in search of someone with a sweet tooth, and they even pursue cars and boats.

You see the honeyguide has had the dubious pleasure of sharing its habitat with humans for millions of years, and that's plenty of time to notice a mutual fondness for bee by-products. But what's really impressive about the alliance that's evolved, is how well human and bird communicate.

For example, when the Boran people of northern Kenya decide to do a spot of honey pilfering they inform the birds by whistling piercingly through clasped fists (this doubles their chances of bumping into a honeyguide, who then reduces the time they spend searching for a hive by two-thirds). Of course the bird has reason to come running flying: only 6% of the hives (of Apis mellifira) in its territory are accessible to beak and claw alone.

Upon arrival, the honeyguide gives its annoying come-hither call, zips off for a moment (presumably to identify landmarks along its proposed route) and then leads the honey gathers in a beeline for the closest hive. (A three-year study found that the birds monitored all the hives in their area, routinely stopping by for a minute or so to check they were active).
Intentionally or otherwise, the honeyguide also informs its followers how far they'll have to walk. The further away the hive, the longer the bird is gone on its initial reconnaissance mission, and the nearer the allies gets to the booty, the shorter the bird's perch-to-perch flights become. When the team finally rocks up at the hive, the bird gives a special 'here it is' call, perches close to the nest and then keeps mum.

If you haven't already seen footage of a greater honeyguide doing its thing, you can view one (and David Attenborough imperilled by bees) here (courtesy of the BBC's Trials of Life).

The weirdness of greater honeyguides is not limited to their dietary habits. These birds are territorial and each male has a special 'song post' where he sits from dawn 'til dusk throughout the breeding season vociferously boasting of his macho charms. Interested lady honeyguides simply drop by for a bit of fun every now and again.
But once knocked up, female honeyguides appear to go to pieces, abandoning the fruit of their passion at the earliest opportunity. They cunningly slip their egg into the nest of unsuspecting hole-nesting birds (such as barbets and woodpeckers). When their little darling hatches, it dispatches its nest mates with a wicked billhook designed for the purpose.
Serendipitously, you can see wonderful photos of this villainous behaviour here.

The adoptive parent (a meves starling) of a greater honeyguide chick bringing home the ~~bacon~~ frogs legs.
Photo by Johann du Preev.

But all is not well in the land of honey procurement.
When I first started working on the dwarf mongooses six years ago, I was constantly beset by these irritating birds; now it's a rarity. I hadn't really given this much thought: sure, the resident birds had learnt I was a no-show and had given up on me (sigh of relief). But after researching this post I began to realise how bad this is.

You see in many places greater honeyguides don't indulge in guiding at all. It's believed that this is the result of humans, at some time in the past, welshing on the deal. And increasingly local people are abandoning traditional food gathering techniques (hey, sugar's dirt cheap at the supermarket), leaving the birds high and dry.
Similarly, human activities such as honey gathering are banned in national parks and other protected areas, exacerbating the problem.

So this amazing alliance between bird and mammal - rightly lauded as the world's most impressive example of interspecies mutualism - is rapidly disappearing.

And I'm hastening its loss!

Honeyguides and Honey Gatherers: Interspecific Communication in a Symbiotic Relationship. H. A. Isack & H. U. Reyer. 1989. Science, 243: 1343-1346.

The Fallacy, Fact, and Fate of Guiding Behavior in the Greater Honeyguide. W. R. J. Dean, W. Roy Siegfried & I. A. W. MacDonald. 1990. Conservation Biology, 4: 99-101.

The mysterious case of the missing mammals

2011-08-29T23:26:00.001+02:00

It’s grim struggling out of bed on cold winter mornings but there are compensations.

For me, it’s watching the sunbathers.
Voyeurism, I know, but who can resist all those exposed fluffy tummies.

In the big nyala tree behind my house the vervet monkeys bob about like sailors in the rigging, waiting in the topmost foliage for the sun’s first rays. And when the light catches their coats, they blaze silver. Nearer at hand, dozens of tiny fire finches, blue waxbills and cut-throat finches squabble in the buffalo-thorn outside my bedroom. Lined up in the warming sun, they ruffle their feathers and shuffle their feet and complain non-stop in a cacophony of twittering.

But my favourite sun-worshippers sit about on the koppies (granite outcrops) I pass on route to my study site. Silhouetted against the sky on the giant ears of rock, they look like an infestation of ticks (OK, I’ve been working on small mammals for too long). But up close, they transform into pyjama-filled plush toys.

Rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis) are less adept than most of us at keeping their body temperature just so which makes their early morning sun-bathing session mandatory.

Now I’ve been spying on this unsuspecting colony of rock hyraxes (or dassies) every day for almost six years, so you can imagine my consternation a month or so ago when they all disappeared.

Was I passing by too early? Too late?
I often see eagles hovering about the rocks - clearly with evil intent - but they couldn’t have scoffed everyone. I rushed home to scour the hyrax literature to find what might have happened.
Apparently diseases like mange can wipe out whole colonies (yet no one’s looked moth-eaten) and a colony can include several widely-spaced koppies in their territory, so maybe they'd just changed residences (but they've never left before).

It was at this time too, that I noticed a new set of tracks on the road at the base of the koppies. Amid the usual mosaic of paw prints (laid down by genets and jackals, civets and porcupines) were prints I’d never seen before: the rear paw’s imprint always overlapped that of the fore paw.

Of course I didn’t put two and two together at first.
But then Koppiekats disappeared.

Koppiekats is the mongoose group who hangs out at the base of the koppies (hence their name). For days I scoured their territory (about 40 ha/100 acres of bush), searching every tussock, termite mound and cranny until I was quite certain they simply weren’t in it. But where were they?? A skiing holiday? A winter break in the Riviera? Victims of alien abduction?

Now when a mongoose is snatched by a ground predator, its group will desert that part of its range, sometimes for up to six months. But what could induce Koppiekats to vacate their entire territory? Dwarf mongooses are fiercely territorial critters and trespassing brings swift retribution. As I trudged about disconsolately seeking non-existent mongooses I kept stumbling upon macabre hints: the beak and piebald feathers of a late hornbill, random duiker legs, the half-consumed torso of a puff adder and a veritable fountain of francolin plumes. Hmm... Should I be checking over my shoulder?

Constant vigilance! Twenty-four species of raptor try to dine on my dwarf mongooses (Helogale parvula) and, on an average morning, the group suffers a predator scare once every 11 minutes. Unsurprisingly their repertoire of alarm squeaks is sophisticated. Their cries warn whether the peril is lurking in the grass or circling above and the degree of danger (from, ‘I spot trouble, but everything’s cool’ to ‘OH SH#@*T!!’).

It was at this point that I realised I’d better figure out who was making those weird paw prints. Now, for those without a foot fetish, deciphering the subtle disparities between the mitts of carnivores is wearying. I’ve spent many an hour crawling about in the dirt, clutching a grubby field guide and squinting in puzzlement at fuzzy-edged smudges. But these tracks turned out to be easy; there aren’t many carnivores with such distinctive pacing.
They were made by a caracal.

The caracal (Caracal caracal) may look like the lynx’s long-lost twin – complete with stumpy tail, untrimmed ear tufts and ginormous hind legs – but they’re not closely related. Molecular studies reveal that the caracal’s nearest and dearest is the African golden cat.
Photo posted on Flickr by e3000.

Now things made sense. These big-pawed, russet cats occasionally padded through our study site in the Kalahari Desert and when the meerkats got wind of one, they’d retreat down their burrow and refuse to emerge for 36 hours.
Why? Well caracals are weapons-grade predators. About the size of a small border collie, they’re dangerously opportunistic, slaying anything that's plentiful, from teeny bugs to antelope twice their own weight.
And they do it by ambush; lurking in wait to fell their victim with a single pounce.
And what a pounce!
A pet caracal, startled while sleeping, shot into the air, and measurements taken by the owner revealed that its forepaws only hit the wall at a height of 3.9 m (12ft 10”).

Such acrobatic feats have not gone unnoticed, and for millennia dignitaries in India and Persia (now Iran) kept tame caracals for hunting. In fact, caracals have given us that ever-handy expression, ‘put a cat among the pigeons’. The ancients - combining two favourite pastimes (bloodletting and gambling) - came up with a sport in which two caracals were set upon a flock of feeding pigeons, and wagers were laid on which of the cats would bring down the most birds. Hunting caracals can leap 4-5 metres (13-16 ft) into the air, and a skilled cat was able to snag up to ten birds before the flock escaped.

Dreaming of yummy mongooses? Back in the good ol’ days, caracals terrorised furred beasts throughout the deserts and dry savannahs of Africa, the Middle East and the Near East (as far as India and Russia). They’re now close to extinction in the northern hemisphere, and here in South Africa they’re classified as ‘vermin’ or ‘problem animals’ (depending on the PC-ness of the province) due to their taste for mutton, and are rigorously poisoned, trapped and shot.
Photo by Steve Jurvetson.

After a few weeks, the caracal prints stopped appearing on the track below the koppies (caracals have big territories) and, much to my relief, both the hyraxes and mongooses have now returned home. Unfortunately, two members of Koppiekats (Saturn and Shade) are missing, presumed consumed, and everyone else is pocked with bite-marks suggesting that their sojourn with the neighbours was not harmonious.
While I’m pleased that caracals live here (and I’d dearly love to see one), I do hope they don’t pay another visit soon.

Saturn (KM068). R.I.P.

Smelly little messages

2011-07-12T14:26:00.001+02:00

A gratuitous mongoose piccy.

PLOP!

Something slipped from my thermos flask and splashed into my mug of tea.

I didn't see it happen. I was sitting on a boulder, with one eye on my mongooses, pouring a quick cuppa while they searched for bugs.
But I heard the plop.

What the...?
Oh god!
Bobbing in my tea was a sticky, black mongoose poop nestled in a small plastic bag.

How did this happen?
Well, when I'm out in the field I carry two thermos flasks. One contains my morning brew and the other is filled with ice to keep faecal samples fresh and perky. Unfortunately, the two flasks look very much alike. And sometimes I'm just not paying attention as I stuff a sample into a flask...

As I carefully fished out the neatly labelled bag, I could see that the tea had seeped inside. Presumably, worse things had seeped out. I didn't know which aggrieved me more, the loss of my tea or the sample. You see, after five years working with dwarf mongooses I've come to share many of their perceptions of the world (scary, I know). And for a dwarf mongoose, every poop is sacred.

Unlike other family members, dwarf mongooses don't just broadcast their droppings far and wide. In fact, regardless of the leg-crossing involved, they'll only poop at the group's special scent-marking sites or at latrines located by each of their sleeping mounds. Now you may think the early morning rush to use the bathroom is hectic at your house, but it's nothing to the jostling that goes on when a mongoose group gets out of bed. Tumbling out of hole, they scramble and dash across to the latrine, a dozen little furry bodies jockeying for position all at one time. Even mongooses that don't need to go make a huge effort to squeeze something out. And once the group has headed off to forage, it's not unusual for someone to realise they haven't completed their toilette and, all in a panic, they'll go racing back. But why do they go to all this trouble?

Does scat mean scat? Latrines were once seen as Keep Out signs but, in many species, they're really community notice boards, all aflutter with phone-number fringed personal ads.
Image borrowed from here.

We know from experiments with banded mongooses and meerkats that mongooses can discriminate between the poop of different individuals. And not just their nearest and dearest; they can also tell the droppings of neighbours from those of strangers. And banded mongooses act very edgy indeed if they encounter a neighbour's poop steaming on the wrong border.

But how do they do it? Well like all carnivores (including Fido and Puss) mongooses are blessed with anal glands that secrete a fatty substance. This goo sits about cosily inside an anal pouch where it's feasted on by hungry bacteria. The bugs leave behind an array of volatile carboxylic acids (which stink), and which ones you end up with (and how much of each sort) depends on which types of bacteria are lurking in your anal pouch. Since every individual has its own unique bacterial assortment, everyone's acid profile is unique, and thus so is their pong. (I do have to wonder how antibiotics affects all this, for example in zoo animals.)

Comet leaving a message.

And of course excrement is also chockfull of all the hormones coursing through the depositor's veins. So for those with a sensitive nose, the gen is endless. Is he stressed? Is he feeling mean? Is she willing?

With so much personal information being bandied about, it's not surprising that individuals sometimes indulge in a bit of self promotion.
At meerkat latrines, the ladies post alluring come-hither messages for the guys next door while their male group-mates dash about madly, trying to mask these billets-doux with stinky macho threats. The end result is an absurdly male-biased latrine whose shitty composition bears no resemblance to the actual group make up.

The take away message proffered by a meerkat latrine.
Image borrowed from here.

In contrast to meerkats, banded mongooses are far more narcissistic. They consider poop an in-house affair. Everyone is too interested in getting the low down – or putting one over - their sexual rivals (who come from inside the group, not out) to spare much of a sniff for the leavings of the opposite sex.

But what are the dwarf mongooses up to? Why do they – unlike other mongooses – religiously pile up huge middens outside their sleeping dens? It's not as if dens (i.e. termite mounds) are in short supply; there are 200 to 300 in each group's territory (I know because I've plotted every one) and the group sleeps - and latrines - at only about 30.

It's in an attempt to figure out why my mongooses don't waste their waste that I daily risk the integrity of my morning cuppa. The smelly little samples I spoon up are destined for use in taste sniff tests. The idea is to present a smorgasbord of poo to selected individuals and see exactly what takes their fancy. Are they more intrigued by the droppings of outsiders or group members; rivals or lovers?

A mobile perfume counter. On the right are a male and female poop from the sniffer's own group; on the left they're from a strange group. Don't panic! The one in the middle isn't from a mongoose on steroids; it's an antelope turd, just to be sure they aren't simply attracted to anything that pongs.

My first attempt at this experiment was not a success.
In fact, it was one of those ghastly moments when you see your research career evaporating before your eyes.
No one sniffed anything.
They totally ignored every single dropping.

In desperation, I grabbed up a poop and stuffed it right under Pleiades' nose. She screwed her eyes shut and turned her head away with such overt revulsion I was shocked. I couldn't have evoked a more negative reaction if I'd done this to a human! I could almost see her thinking, 'Who would leave that here!'

That was when it hit me.

Dwarf mongooses never leave their droppings lying about in the field, yet here I was presenting samples to animals as they trotted about foraging. It was like tossing post-it notes under the feet of busy shoppers and wondering why no one read them.

I tried again at one of the group's scent-marking sites.
And low and behold, they scratched and sniffed!
O frabjous day!
Of course this makes the whole procedure much more tedious because the samples must be kept frozen until just before they're presented. So I spend my days trailing after the mongooses, trying to anticipate when they're going to stop in at one of their toilet facilities. When I believe a lavatory stop is imminent, I have to madly thaw the samples down the front of my shirt (and, yes, it does feel as ghastly as it sounds).

I'm still undertaking these trials so I can't yet tell you what messages are encrypted in my mongooses' latrines. However, it looks as if the ladies (who are very status conscious) are most interested in getting the low down on one another, while the guys can't resist a lovely female poop, particularly if it's from someone they haven't met.

Bugbears enjoying themselves at the information exchange (i.e. scent-marking site).

Ware warthogs!

2011-07-02T22:52:00.000+02:00

Photo by Arno Meintjes.

I’m writing this post for people, like myself, who felt irritated when the Lion King portrayed Pumbaa (the insouciant warthog) as living on bugs ('slimy... yet satisfying').

Alright, it was probably only me, but warthogs are grazers for Heaven’s sake!

Of the 16 pig species trotting about the world today, the warthog is the most deeply committed vegetarian.
And its veggie of choice is grass.

Look inside a warthog’s mouth and (if you can avoid losing a finger) you’ll discover a highly sophisticated grass processing plant. The incisors are designed for nipping shoots from closely cropped lawn, and behind the seriously off-putting canines (i.e. the tusks), the entire tooth row is given over to one mighty mother of a molar.
Young warthogs shed their normal piggy assemblage of premolars and molars so their third molar can grow to immense proportions. This behemoth, which is open-rooted and grows continuously, is designed to combat the gritty rasp of silica-rich grass. Even a warthog’s jaw hinges differently to that of other family members, allowing its chops to work up a good sideways swing for grass grinding.

Of course you may be wondering how such a specialised grass-muncher copes with the dry season when all the grass has withered away? Well hungry warthogs switch to rooting up the grass’s underground rhizomes and bulbs.

Now don’t get me wrong, although warthogs are connoisseurs of pasture they’ll also munch fruit and berries. But they have surprisingly conservative tastes; even when starving, they turn their snouts up at veggie scraps, apple peelings and bread (I’ll tell you about that fiasco some other time).

A warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) relishing a meal of marulas.
Photo by Brian Gratwicke.

But warthogs haven’t totally forgotten their omnivorous ancestry. This was brought home to me as I watched a large female warthog marching along a road in Kruger National Park. Up ahead, lying in the centre of the tarmac, was a road-killed squirrel.
‘Oh this will be interesting,’ I thought niavely, ‘I wonder if she’ll react?’
I imagined her pausing to give the little body a cursory sniff.

I was wrong.

As the warthog approached the body, she quickened her pace. And then, when she was still a meter away, she leapt. Yes, that’s right, leapt. It was a lightning fast strike and I gazed open-mouthed as she snatched up the dead squirrel and beat it viciously against the tarmac. I could hear the thwack, thwack, thwack from the car.
Moving at a frenzy, she hurled the squirrel high into the air and as it hit the ground she lunged forward and trampled on it, over and over, with her front trotters. It was like someone treading grapes, only ten times the speed. She repeated these manoeuvres like a creature possessed for some minutes and then, pinning the body with her front hoof, began tearing it apart.

I have to admit I was stunned. So much for darling little warthogs!

Cannibalism? No, a bit of hakuna matata; they’re grooming.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

I was reminded of this illusion-shattering incident as I drove home from the mongooses earlier this week.
Now, I should explain that my landlord often sups on impala at his weekend braai (barbeque), and he tosses the less edible bits out for the delectation of the local vultures. So it’s not unusual for me to find myself engulfed in a flapping cloud of monstrous birds as I pass by on a Monday.

But this week the vultures weren’t enjoying their usual feast; they were all sitting waiting disconsolately in the trees.
Huh?
Was a leopard keeping them off?
A lion...?

As I got nearer I saw that a warthog family was gathered at the carcass. This sounder (comprised of two big mums and nine piglets) is one of my favourites because the little hogs are always gambolling and jousting with one another or trotting along decorously - tails raised - in single file. But this week I was a little dismayed to see them tucking in enthusiastically at the bloody remains of the impala's ribcage. Each charming little piglet - its face spattered with gore - was tugging with great vigour on the end of a rib!

With my usual aplomb as a wildlife photographer, I failed to capture the moment (although you can see a camera-trap image of warthogs munching carrion here, if you need proof of this perfidy), and the best I can offer you are ‘after shots’.

The culprits fleeing the scene of the crime.

Pissed-off vultures (white-backed) waiting for the swine to relinquish their lunch.

So next time you’re watching the Lion King, be thankful that grass-eating Pumbaa is dining on nothing worse than bugs!

Today a gerbil, tomorrow the world

2011-06-20T20:04:00.000+02:00

The first time I saw mongooses out foraging I went into shock (well, that's a slight exaggeration).

It was back in 1995, and I was on holiday in Kruger National Park.
I'd stumbled on a group of about 25 banded mongooses and they were busily searching for dinner around my car. Each animal was scratching through the leaf litter, poking its nose into likely holes and raking around under fallen timber. Every now and again one would unearth a cricket or a juicy grub from a pile of dung or noisily crunch up a beetle.

Now this I was accustomed to.

I'd spent lots of time watching Australia's marsupial carnivores (e.g. quolls, dunnarts, antechinuses) and they obtain their takeaways in exactly the same way.

But what amazed me was that the mongooses totally ignored one another. Here they were trotting about, only a foot or two apart, burbling away companionably and moving along as a troop, but no one paid the slightest attention to what anyone else was eating!

Now if a family of quolls or a pair of dunnarts are out foraging and someone finds a tasty morsel, it's a free for all!
Everyone one dashes over and there's squeaking and brawling and utter fur-flying chaos. Heck, even dogs and cats will rush over to investigate if a companion makes a killing.

I guess, in retrospect, I shouldn't have been so shocked because flocks of birds hunt like this all the time, but mongooses have FUR for Heaven's sake!

An eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus). Quolls are Australia's best attempt at a mongoose; regrettably they're solitary and nocturnal.
Photo posted on Flickr by Shuttergirl3.

Sociality doesn't come easily to mongooses. Of the 37 species snooping about the world today, only eight (all African) have mastered the art of living together. You see mongooses are descended from a Christmas eve checkout queue of solitary, skulking killers and their physiques have remained unchanged for 30 million years.

But as the African climate dried out and savannah replaced forest, the mongooses – now perilously gadding about in the open – banded together so they'd always have someone to watch for predators. So, unlike other pack-living carnivores (such as wolves, lions or dholes), the mongooses ganged up to outsmart the beasts that ate them, rather than to up-size the beasts that they ate.

So while my little dwarf mongooses are now among the planet's most sophisticated socialites, at mealtimes their ancestral proclivity for independence shows through: everybody does their own thing, together.

Now I've explained all this, I'm going to contradict myself by describing the hour I spent with Ecthelion yesterday morning.
They were gerbil hunting - cooperatively.

I've only seen my mongooses behave this way a couple of times before, but it's always disconcerting. Their quarry, the local bushveld gerbils (Gerbilliscus leucogaster; you can see a photo of one here), live in big colonial warrens which they dig in sandy soil.
And yesterday morning, Merlin sniffed out an occupied warren. He immediately hollered for the group with a special rodent-hunting call (a bubbling, staccato version of their usual 'follow me' squeak) and the group came running. While Merlin and one or two others dug madly at the warren's main burrow entrances, everyone else milled about excitedly, watching and sniffing, pushing their noses down the many minor entrance holes, and peering under logs or into clumps of grass. They were all searching, impatiently, for any gerbil foolish enough to flee its underground home.

Putting in the spade work.

'We seek him here, we seek him there...'

Now this cooperative effort isn't exactly egalitarian because the group's reigning monarchs will filch the spoils from anyone who manages to bag a rodent. However, gerbils are big (about one-third the size of a mongoose, which makes the kill protracted, noisy and traumatic for soft-hearted observers), so lesser group members are usually able to snatch up some bloody, dismembered bits.

At the last hunt I witnessed, Koppiekats (a group of 18) snagged three of the five fleeing gerbils, and eight mongooses scrounged a meal.

The Lazy Mongoose's Guide to Gerbil Hunting.

Ecthelion's hunt wasn't successful (to my secret relief) as the gerbils refused to be flushed, and after three-quarters of an hour the 15 milling mouse-hunters were getting frustrated. Widening their search area brought them over to where I was sitting, with my backpack on the ground beside me. I should have foreseen this, but they began eyeing my bag speculatively, and I could see them thinking, 'Well if we can't find them anywhere else, they must be hiding in there'.

'"They must be in that bag..."

Soon half the group was lined up in front of me, glaring accusingly, convinced that I was harbouring their missing rodents. (Do they know me better than I realise?). Since I could think of no conceivable way to convince a group of mongooses that my backpack was gerbil-free, I shouldered the offending article and withdrew. They immediately called off their hunt ('Well, she's pinched the booty!') and headed off to forage normally.

"Gimme the gerbils!"

Now I know that dwarf mongooses hunting gerbils is not on a par with chimpanzees killing monkeys, but there's something worrying about these little creatures teaming up to bring down prey.
Sure, today it's just a few pesky gerbils, but where will this lead?
How long before I come across a felled duiker or a warthog nibbled off at the knees?
Come to think of it, aren't hyenas supposed to be descended from ancestral mongooses?
THAT'S where it will lead!

Just don't say I didn't warn you...

Finding faerie fauna

2011-06-17T21:18:00.000+02:00

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It's not so very, very far away;
You pass the gard'ner's shed and you just keep straight ahead -
I do so hope they've really come to stay.

                                               The Fairies.
                                               Rose Fyleman

These are the opening lines of a poem written in the 1920s after a series of fairy photographs had taken the world by storm.

The photos were snapped by two young cousins (Elsie Wright 16 and Frances Griffiths 10) at Cottingley, England. The girls borrowed Elsie's dad's camera and photographed cardboard cut-out fairies (copied from a children's book and fixed with pegs) to persuade Elsie's mum to let them play down by the creek (where the fairies lived).
Mr Wright was so annoyed at their prank he refused them further use of his camera, but his wife believed the girls' story and passed the pictures on to the Theosophical Society. Once the society had established that the photographic plates hadn't been tinkered with, a prominent society member – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) - declared the photos authentic, sparking fierce worldwide debate.

One of the purported fairy photos:
Frances Griffiths with the Leaping Fairy.
Image source: Wikipedia.

Elsie and Frances didn't come clean for more than 60 years.

In the 1980s Frances explained,

"I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun, and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in."

This incident (dramatised in the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story) illustrates our deep-seated need for magical entities. Whether they're dryads, fauns and sylphs, pixies and gnomes, or elves, ents and hobbits, we show an incredible determination to populate the natural world with mystical beings.

But why?

Do we really need nature spirits to feel the enchantment of Nature?

Living here has influenced my thoughts about this. You see it's almost impossible to venture outside without feeling like you've slipped into the world of The Magic Faraway Tree.

All around there are rustles and scurries; an eerie trembling in the grass, a twitch of foliage seen from the corner of the eye, the ever-present feeling of being watched... An eye glints from a rock crevice, a wizened face peers down from the leaves or a huge horned figure looms darkly against the twilit sky.

One of the nature spirits that live at the bottom of my garden: a grey duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia).

Of all the local nymphs, the bushbucks are the most impressive. Haunting leafy thickets, they tiptoe past with an uncanny staccato, high-stepping walk; placing each hind hoof precisely in the print of the forefoot. When alarmed they freeze, disappearing magically into the dappled underbrush. You can look straight at them and see nothing, and then, quite suddenly, there's a face! Right there, staring straight back at you. It's like those optical illusions that jump unexpectedly from vase to human silhouettes and back again, only it's a lot more startling.

A bushbuck sylph. The home-range it uses by day is completely separate from the one it haunts by night.

After experiencing the African bush, I can't help but think that it's the loss of this life-brimming habitat that's created our need for magical entities.
Maybe we conjured a panoply of nature spirits to replace the wild beasts we'd driven away, and to populate northern lands that lie bereft of fauna for half the year. Are we simply trying to recreate our ancestral home: the abundant environment in which we evolved for millions of years?

So what's prompted this reverie on the origins of faerie fauna?

Well a couple of days ago I encountered a little Elemental more adorable than any human mind could conjure.

The dogs and I were returning from our evening walk when we rounded a corner to find a newborn bushbuck lamb standing by the track. 'Standing' isn't entirely accurate; it was sort of teetering on weirdly propped legs. Only knee-high with fluffy dark fur, huge bat-ears and a puppy's wet nose, it gazed at us, all bright-eyed with curiosity. And then, to my horror, it came tottering straight toward us! Of course my dogs went berserk, straining violently at the leash in their attempt to reach it. While I wrestled wildly with the dogs, it wobbled closer and closer, stopping only a metre (3 ft) from their slathering jaws.

I didn't get a photo of this spell-binding creature (although it stood gazing at us in wonder for at least a minute) because I needed both hands to constrain the dogs. I'm sorry I didn't snap my fairy-encounter because images of day-old bushbucks are even rarer than genuine fairy photos.

An anal-retentive fairy? Baby bushbucks won't urinate or defecate unless licked by Mum, and she gulps down all predator-attracting trace evidence (nothing like maternal devotion!). This little cutie is a few days older (and much lighter) than the sprite I met.
The photo was borrowed from here.

Many of the local antelopes leave their newborns hidden in the ~~bull-rushes~~ shrubbery for their first few days or weeks, but bushbuck mums go to an extreme. Their ankle-biters spend four months lying out alone (I wonder if they have imaginary friends?). And they seem to have the gift of invisibility because I've never before glimpsed a bushbuck less than two months old.
So why was this little creature approaching us? In fact, why was it even tottering about at all; I was certain we hadn't flushed it from its hiding spot? Was it a starving orphan? Was it currently imprinting on my huskies, and would be scarred for life (in every sense of the phrase)?

Then the answer suddenly materialised.
Mum, who'd been standing invisibly right next to us (undoubtedly biting her nails hooves to the quick), could stand the tension no longer. She leapt away into the undergrowth, and Junior, realising that something was amiss, wobbled away after her.
I gave a huge sigh of relief.
We must have stumbled on the pair during one of Mum's twice daily visits and her little darling was so obsessed with the prospect of guzzling milk, it paid little heed to who provided it!

Now with encounters like that, who needs fairies?

Back in 1918, Frances Griffiths mailed one of her fairy photos to a friend in Cape Town (where Frances had spent much of her life). On the back of the photo she wrote,
"It is funny, I never used to see them in Africa. It must be too hot for them there."

I'd suggest that there's just too much competition.

Puck? No, a young male bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus). Unlike other solitary antelopes, bushbucks aren't territorial (except perhaps mature males) and they enjoy a bit of company. When two meet, they greet each other cordially and mosey about together for the next hour or two.
Photo posted on Flickr by bwana4711.

This morning I showered with a murderer

2011-06-07T10:12:00.000+02:00

I did it yesterday too.

Now you mustn't imagine that I enter into such liaisons lightly.
But there's only so long that one can go unwashed in order to avoid unsavoury company.

Maybe I should start at the beginning...

About a week ago, I woke at 3 am to the sound of screaming.
Never a good sign.
The dogs, Wobbly Cat and I hurtled out of bed, in a tangle of blankets, flailing limbs and stepped-on paws, and blundered to the bathroom; source of the shrieks. What we found was grisly.

Now I want you to imagine the shower scene from Psycho. Not the bloody bit (which, by the way, was actually the chocolate saucy bit, because Hitchcock thought stage-blood looked wishy-washy in black and white) but the suspenseful build-up. OK, you need to tweak things a little; make the victim rather short and dumpy, and she's snoozing in the cubicle rather than actually showering, but otherwise everything is bona fide horror movie.
The assailant's stealthy approach, the victim blithely unaware... the weapon silently raised, ready to strike... And then AAAAHH!

Well we stumbled in at the AAAH part to find the killer dangling from the light fitting with the terrified victim struggling in his jaws. This was disturbing because the victim was a friend; she'd lived in my house for more than a year. OK, I admit she was a frog, but foam nest frogs are endearing creatures. Creamy coloured with huge jewel eyes and suction-pad toes, she'd munch any mealworm tossed her way, and - along with her gentlemen friend - had faithfully guarded the entry to my shower for the last two months; one atop each door post like a pair of animated gargoyles.

And now here she was scrabbling frantically in mid air, squawking in distress, with the killer's jaws clamped over her back and her huge hind feet wind-milling.

My dearly departed southern foam nest frog (Chiromantis xerampelina). R.I.P.
You can read about this critter's idiosyncrasies here.

And the perpetrator? Still only half-emerged from a small hole in the ceiling, the assassin was slicked out in glistening brown. He was, of course, legless (what else would a snake-phobic expect to find in their bathroom at 3 am). Not large enough to send me into a full-scale panic attack (at a bit less than a metre long (2' 6") and 2 cm (0.8'') thick), the murderer glared down at me with the eyes of a cat: bright gold with a vertical pupil.

'The Beast, I presume', I thought grimly.

Those of you imprudent enough to follow this blog will know I live in fear of The Predatory Beast that haunts my ceiling. Since I've never had the courage to climb up and identify The Beast (you can read of my ongoing cowardice here and here) I guess it's inevitable that he would eventually come to me. But at 3 am, identifying him was beyond me (actually that's an excuse; it's beyond me at anytime).
Was this snake venomous? Was it dangerous?

The frog's shrieks and cries were so heart-rending I considered launching a rescue mission. After all, how in Heaven was this snake going to gobble down an amphibian four times wider than his own head? Yet something in the snake's bitterly determined, clamp-jawed expression ("All I have to do is keep my mouth shut and wait") suggested my shower accessory was already doomed. The pets and I trudged sadly back to bed and lay trying not to hear the pitiful – and now weakening - shrieks.

By 6 am, I knew I had a problem. The snake was still hanging from the bathroom light, his head and throat bizarrely distended to accommodate the first inch of limp, dangling frog. And to me, it was appallingly clear that - like Pooh Bear after a honey binge – this snake, post breakfast, was not going to fit back through the hole from whence it came. Oh God!

The killer - a marbled tree snake (Dipsaloboa aulica) - was identified, from a mug shot, by the folk at SA Reptile Forum. (I guess I'm now honour-bound to stop suggesting they're a little bit barmy). The bulge on the perp's right side is my friend's hind feet, and the rest of her is contained within the swelling on the left.

I didn't photograph the whole frog-swallowing thing (sorry) for fear that any intervention by the paparazzi might induce vomiting, and my friend would then have died in vain. Marbled tree snakes hang out in lush riverside forest in the lowveld (a strip of low-altitude, bushy savannah edging South Africa's eastern border). They specialise in hunting tree frogs and geckos by night and, although venomous, they aren't considered dangerous to people (fingers crossed). I suppose it's fitting that my resident tree frog should die at the hands fangs of an arch nemesis.

By 7 am, breakfast was consumed (miraculously) and The Beast retreated to my shower cubicle, coiling up neatly in the grooves of the aluminium frame over the doorway.
He's been there ever since.

Ophidiophobia mutating into ablutophobia (fear of snakes, and bathing, respectively). This photo was taken from inside my (tiny) shower cubicle looking up at the lintel. When I'm showering, those coils are only 1 foot from my nose; genuine immersion therapy.

Initially I abstained from showering (hoping to wait out the digestion period), but the creature's shown no inclination to leave even now he's svelte. Bathing is tense for us both: he tightens up into a bundle, with just his snout peeping out over his coils, and I edge nervously into the cubicle and press myself against the far wall. We then try to avoid making eye contact more than, oh, forty times per shower. He's an awesome water saving device though.

Figuring that he was pretty harmless, I'd resigned myself to his winter-long presence (snakes have to hibernate somewhere I suppose), but then one of my resident toads came hopping into the bathroom. Instant serpent action! Arrgh! I didn't know snakes could move that fast. Fortunately, I managed to shove the toad out the door before tooth-contact was made, but my fumbling attempts at snake removal (unravelling coils from the light/toilet/tap/shower-head/sink using a broom handle) were laughable (yes, I know snakes don't laugh, but he was doing his best).

Making light of murder. My resident snake (I go cold just writing those words) enthusiastically making dinner plans.

So The Beast continues to squat in my shower cubicle believing my bathroom is a larder. And I'm getting neurotic trying to remember to keep the bathroom door closed to avert further carnage.

Ahh, don't you just love snakes...

My squatter expressing his feelings toward the landlord.

The month of yes you May

2011-05-21T13:31:00.002+02:00

Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev'ryone goes
Blissfully astray.

It's here, it's here!
That shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts
Merrily appear!

It's May! Camelot, the musical.

Now I appreciate that the Arthurian legend originated in the UK, and that Camelot, however mythical, was never situated in the southern hemisphere.

So the above song must refer to the delights of spring.
Nevertheless, it's entirely appropriate to what's going on here right now.

Outside, my neighbours are rushing around in a frenzy of lust.
The air is reverberating with the bellows of macho guys proclaiming their supremacy, and furtive couples peep from behind every bush.

Yep, it's the mating season. Tra la!

And don't imagine that I've escaped unscathed.
Every day I'm meeting tall, dark strangers who threaten to sweep me off my feet (and trample me under foot hoof too, but I guess you can't have everything).

Winning by a neck. When push comes to shove, a greater greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) will win the ladies.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

It's all very hectic. Pumped up on a seasonal high of testosterone, the kudus and waterbucks are strutting around like body-builders with a severe case of mumps, and the wildebeests are actually frothing at the mouth. OK, I don't blame the wildebeests. Around here the species doesn't migrate, so the males have been sitting about alone - minding their territories - for the last eleven months. It's understandable that they're a wee bit excited now. They've got just three weeks to get a bit of the action.

You wanted what??

The territories of male wildebeests are absurdly small (around 1 ha/2.5 acres) but, despite this intensive living, fewer than half of the adults manage to bag a suitable domicile. You see any old bachelor pad won't do; it must be a chick-magnet. And when the girls do come wandering through, all Hell breaks loose. The resident bull dances out to meet them, showing off his best rocking canter and calling feverishly (pinch your nose and say 'G-NU' in a deep voice).

For as long as there are ladies visiting, he hasn't time to eat or rest. And all those civilised rituals - of head-shaking, kneeling and ground-horning - that he's been exchanging with neighbours for months, are forgotten. Any male fool enough to poke his nose in, simply gets head-slammed.

When lady guests are present, a male dashes about herding them away from the neighbours and blatantly checking out the talent. With nose and tail outstretched, he sniffs butt, and the girls oblige by dribbling a little tell-tale urine for him to taste. (Yes, it does make his lip curl, but this wafts the pee into his vomeronasal organ for chemical analysis, and does not signify impoliteness or any disrespect for the fairer smaller sex).

When in heat, female wildebeests are usually ready and willing, but if some little floozy starts giving him the run around, he reminds her of what she's missing by rearing up in front of her with a full erection!

Male wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) are not sophisticated lovers. They repeat the act of love dozens of times (twice a minute) for as long as their partner will stand still. But you can't fault them on efficiency: adult females enjoy a conception rate of 95%.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it's easy for an excited Romeo, wildly pursuing a coy lady friend, to fail to notice a researcher sitting quietly, surrounded by small, busy mongooses.
So far, no one has actually made hoof contact, but there have been some pretty near misses. And the way I've been feeling lately (after losing two of my three cats to Feline Leukaemia Virus), I'm tempted to fling myself down before them, crying, 'Bring on the hooves!'

But I guess trampling isn't likely to be fatal.

Love is in the air... At four months old, this little guy won't join the landed gentry (who corner the mating market) for 4 or 5 years.
But, come on, it doesn't hurt to try!

But much more annoying than amorous wildebeests (everyone loves a lover, after all) are the male waterbucks. These large shaggy antelopes also hold down territories year round, but they're more up-market in their choice of real estate. As suggested by the name, waterbucks must drink daily (slurping up 25% more water even than cattle) so snagging property with water-frontage is a real boon. However, prices are exorbitant and battles fierce.

So for me, driving home (on a track that follows the river) is like blundering into a film shoot of Gladiator. The horse-sized warriors stand broadside on the road, necks arched, tails stuck out and eyes locked. Without warning, they leap toward one another, thrusting and parrying, but without making contact. Eventually someone breaches the gap, slamming into their opponent with a terrifying crash, and the pair staggers back and forth, horns locked together in a battle of might.

Fighting fit. The horns of male waterbucks (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) are heavily ridged so they lock with a rival's weapons, reducing skewering accidents. The male's neck and shoulders are also armour-plated (with 2 cm/0.8" thick skin) but stab wounds to the chest or belly can still prove fatal. Photo by Johann du Preez.

But unlike sparring impalas or love-smitten wildebeests, battling waterbucks let NOTHING distract them. A car? So what.
One evening, as my dogs and I sat in the car waiting (as usual) for two huge males to sidle aggressively back and forth across the road, Magic leapt out of the window. Yapping hysterically, she raced over to lunge and snap at the combatants' fetlocks.

I stopped breathing, envisioning my beloved dog impaled on a 2m (6ft 5") long lance. But I needn't have worried; the champions totally ignored her. Not even a glance.

After a few minutes of valiant effort, she trotted forlornly back to the car, looking as if all joy had gone from the world. Wizard, who's long harboured a mistrust of waterbucks, watched this silently from the security of the vehicle, and then gave me such a look of 'I told you so' that he might as well have uttered the words.

I'm not even going to mention the lunatic way the impalas (Aepyceros melampus) are behaving right now, since I talked about them last breeding season. Suffice to say that any animal whose grunt is audible for 2 km (1.2 miles) should be a little bit more circumspect in its mating habits.
Photo by John Samuel.

So you think you know why animals play...

2011-05-17T19:03:00.000+02:00

For this post I need to redirect you to Scientific American's guest blogs.

Don't worry, it's no more scientific than usual (hope they don't mind!).

Running scared

2011-04-22T10:30:00.000+02:00

Running just isn't my thing.

I've never understood what people gain from jogging (apart from joint problems) or why any sane biped would want to run a marathon.

Of course I did do cross-country running for PE back in high school (we jogged out the school gates, sauntered to a friend's house, drank coffee for two hours and then jogged back in through the gates). I guess that doesn't count.

However, since coming to Africa, I've discovered that there are times when I'm happy to run with the best of them.

And yesterday was one of them.

The occupational hazards of a mongoose researcher: I've taken to my heels to avoid ostriches, bulls, poachers, rhinos, elephants and a hand-raised ground squirrel. Said demonic ground squirrel (sporting HUGE teeth and an ankle-biting fetish) shown above.

When I first moved into this house (located right on the banks of the Oliphants River) I was very cautious about walking by the water's edge. You see this river is home to a multitude of Nile crocodiles: little cute teeny ones – goggle-eyed and stripy in black, yellow and green - who high-tail it for the water the moment they see you, up to massive behemoths 5 m (16.5 ft) long who just lie there and watch as you pass. They bask on the beaches, waddle along the roads between river and dams, and creep out at night to drag away anything unwise enough to die within 500m of the river.

A Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) paddling in the dam near my house. When I stopped to photograph his grisly prize (an ill-starred waterbuck the size of a large horse), he hastily towed it further off shore.

So when it came to walking with my dogs in the river bed, I was initially very wary about getting too close to the water. After all, I'd seen those scary wildlife documentaries where the crocodiles leap out of the water to snatch milling wildebeests off the bank. And let's not forget killer whales, beaching themselves on the sand for a mouthful of unsuspecting seal pup.
You simply can't trust aquatic predators to stay in their rightful element.

Yet after three years of riverbank rambles, free of anyone trying to eat me, I've become a little blasé.

Well yesterday I got a shock.

The dogs and I were wending our way along the river bed, ploughing through the drifted sand and clambering over rocks, when I spotted a huge crocodile basking on the beach of a mid-stream island. It was one of the really massive ones, close to 4 m (13 ft) long and it looked more like a felled rainforest tree than an actual animal. I cannot describe to you how awesome these creatures are. It's not so much their length as their immense bulk; they can weigh up to 1000 kg (2200 lbs). I can never look at them without shivering inside and feeling that reptiles simply should NOT get this big. And they've effectively cured me of a lifelong desire to meet a dinosaur.

The world's worst photograph of a mammoth crocodile (sorry!). Crocs have all sorts of spiffy adaptations, like a palatial valve (a fleshy flap at the back of the tongue) which seals their throat when below water. Normally crocs dive for up to 15-20 minutes but, when harassed, they can stay below for 2 hours, reducing their heart rate to 2-3 beats a minute and closing their heart valves to redirect blood to only essential organs.

The dogs and I picked our way across the sandy beach toward the creature, stopping about 3 m (10 ft) from the water's edge. I'd been a bit hesitant about approaching it so directly as I didn't want to disturb it, but these big guys tend to be very confident and there was about 25 m (82 ft) of fast-flowing river swirling between us. The dogs, of course, simply didn't see it (they never see crocodiles unless they move) and I was keen for them to do so, so they'd understand why I keep insisting the water is dangerous.

While we were standing on the beach, enjoying the vicarious thrill of gazing at such an awesome predator, the awesome predator lurched to its feet - standing up on fully straightened legs (called a 'high-walk' in crocodile parlance) which made it waist-height - swung round to face us and plunged into the river. It came surging toward us through the water at full speed (about 15 kph/10 mph according to the books), and it took me a moment or two to realise, 'hey, it's coming straight at us!'

Coincidence, surely.

I walked a few steps downstream and it immediately altered its path so its trajectory would intercept us.

Oh God!

By now it was half way across the river and I felt a rush of alarm, disbelief and dismay as I realised we were now on the menu. I envisioned the beast hurtling out of the water in front of us; a creature at least ten times my own body mass.

It was at this point that I turned and ran.

Fast.

I'm afraid I cannot tell you whether the crocodile actually emerged on to our beach, as I didn't stop to look back.
And neither did the dogs.
We just ran.

And from now on, I'm going be to very cautious again!

I thought you should see what these big guys are capable of. If you go here you can view a series of eight photos showing what happened during this horrible interaction.
Photo by Martin Nyfeler/Barcroft Media, and posted on Flickr by Arno Meintjes.

Spots before my eyes...

2011-04-12T20:33:00.000+02:00

During the last couple of days I've been seeing spots.
And no ordinary spots.
Yesterday's were sublime; today's ghastly.

Let's start with the sublime.

When I set out to walk the dogs last night, I forgot to put my camera in my pocket. Realising while still in the garden, I chose not to go back. 'Bring on the leopards', I quipped to the dogs (dogs respond more favourably to quipping than cats or mongooses).

Twenty minutes later, Magic (my husky-cross) began tugging at the leash, eager to chase something she'd spotted up ahead. There was a noisy mob of guinea-fowl strutting about the track where it crested the hill ahead of us, so I assumed Magic was keen to sup on fowl (which are very spotted too, by the way).

We trekked on up the hill, Magic dragging me along (boy, can huskies pull) and the guinea-fowl squawked and squabbled their way off into the bush. But as we rounded the next bend, two things happened simultaneously. My dogs caught a whiff of something VERY exciting at the edge of the path (jerking me almost off my feet as they doubled back to investigate) and I glanced up to see a very large leopard 30 m (100 ft) away. He was nonchalantly strolling along the track ahead of us, oblivious to our presence. His pace was so relaxed and leisurely, I could almost see him smelling the flowers.

The cat's whiskers. Meeting a leopard (Panthera pardus) is a rare and wonderful privilege.
Photo by A & L Meintjes.

White-tipped tail held jauntily high, he sauntered over to a trackside shrub, sniffed at the foliage and then luxuriously rubbed his cheeks against the twigs. He then turned, backed up to the shrub and sprayed a jet of urine up on to the leaves. With his scent-marking efforts complete, he strolled on. Meanwhile my dogs, busy feasting (metaphorically) on his previous contribution, didn't even see him.

Although I regularly come across leopard prints, I've only met a leopard in-the-fur twice before; despite three years of daily dog walking. This macho lad regularly enlivens our walks by leaving stinky stop signs at all the prominent road junctions. Worryingly large, these piles of droppings are always chockfull of fur, so while the dogs enjoy a sniffing-fest, I struggle to identify the ill-fated fur-bearer.

Yesterday's leopard was big. I don't know why our leopards are bigger than other people's, but every time I see a documentary on the leopards of the Cedarburg, or the Cape, or the coast, I go into shock. How can those squat little animals be leopards? Yesterday's cat was almost hip-height and close to 2 m (6 ft) long. I guess it's part and parcel of the species' versatility: these professional killers pad about all over Africa and across Asia as far as Korea and Manchuria. They're the only large carnivore stalking around the rainforests of Africa, and a frozen leopard carcass was found stuck in the ice at 5692 m (18,700 ft) on Mt Kilimanjaro (perhaps not a wise choice of habitat, in retrospect). They even cling on in places where smaller carnivores have been eradicated. How? Catholic tastes. A study in the Serengeti, for example, found that leopards munched 30 different prey species compared with only 12 chomped by lions.

Room with a view. Leopards are renowned for hauling their meals up into trees, but they only indulge in this habit if other big meat-eaters live in the area.
Photo by A & L Meintjes.

At about the same time that my dogs caught sight of yesterday's leopard, he became aware of us, turning to look back over his shoulder. Instantly he dropped into a low, slinking crouch and bounded away into the bush. I was left wrestling with my dogs (trying desperately to thwart their suicidal desire to give chase) and was quite unable to stop smiling.

Well they were the sublime spots, now for the ghastly.

Pepper ticks.
The Devil's own condiment.

Pepper ticks are just like normal, everyday ticks except they're tiny. Three could sit comfortably on the head of a pin (maybe four if they scrunched up). Just like regular ticks, they guzzle blood, inject you full of horrible parasites and leave huge, itchy lumps. And each one must be individually extracted and crushed (they do make a satisfying pop). However, unlike normal ticks, they hunt in swarms. Stumble on a pepper-tick hideout and you're polka-dotted with misery.

I'm not going to tell you how much pepper ticks make me suffer, or how they drive me into a frenzy of rage. Suffice to say that today, after a very pleasant morning with Ecthelion, I painstakingly removed 437 of them. And yes, I did count every one.

Overcome by pepper ticks?
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes (what wonderful people).

More snakes and adders

2011-04-05T16:36:00.003+02:00

The one thing that most people know about mongooses is that they kill and eat snakes.
This is like knowing that humans eat lasagne.

Of course, there are snakes and there are snakes.
Big snakes are only too happy to kill and eat little mongooses.
And my dwarf mongooses are the teeniest mongooses there are.
Being rat-sized and the weight of half a can of baked beans, they're ideal snack snake food.
But ONLY if they're caught unawares.

The spotted bush snake (Philothamnus semivariegatus) is about the largest snake my dwarfs can kill. It's a slick, zippy snake, about 1 m (3 ft) long and the thickness of my thumb. Sadly, only the group's oldest members can feast on the spoils because no one else's teeth are hefty enough to pierce the skin.

When walking in the bush alone I rarely see a snake.
But 'see' is the critical word here. Add 15 mobile snake-detectors and it's a whole different story. Last Sunday I spent an hour pottering along with Ecthelion. In that time we met two large puff adders and a Mozambique spitting cobra.

When a mongoose meets a life-threatening snake, it hollers for the group using a special, high-pitched 'snake' call. Everyone immediately comes running. It's a moment I dread. All the mongooses cluster around the snake, flattening themselves down on their tummies, calling and spitting. The snake coils into the smallest possible bundle and assumes strike position. I bite my nails.
At this point, puff adders demonstrate why they're so named. They produce a loud, ominous noise: a deep whooshing hiss like a deflating football, which lasts around 3 seconds and is then repeated over and over. The mongooses are not deterred. Individually they try to dart in and nip the snake's body, leaping backward as it lunges for them. Some even cartwheel half a metre into the air to evade the striking snake. I stand well back, wincing and squirming, with my eyes screwed half shut.

This is an action shot. Unfortunately it features two cryptic species. Can you spot the puff adder (lower centre) and two mongooses (upper right and upper left beneath the grass tussock)?

From my (wimpy) perspective, snake-mobbing is worst when - as now - the group has small pups. I've seen a puff adder (undetected by me or the group) snatch a mongoose pup almost at my feet. It's not an experience I wish to repeat.

But snake-baiting appears to be a learned behaviour in mongooses and the pups are totally clueless. On Sunday, Ecthelion's three smallest members came trotting over to see what all the fuss was about, wending in and out of the mobbing adults and blithely ignoring the huge puff adder poised inches above them. I actually stopped breathing when Hiccup marched right over the adder's coils. But no one else even noticed. The snake and the mobbing mongooses were focussed exclusively on one another; neither could afford a moment's distraction in the deadly exchange of bite and counter bite.

This whole awful scenario ends after about five minutes, when the mongooses lose interest and wander away. I know this is sounds like an anticlimax, but once the mongooses know the snake's presence, and the snake knows it has a whole group to contend with, the peril is over.

A puff adder (Bitis arietans) feeling put upon. Snakes breathe by moving their ribs (called a costal pump) and a puff adder uses the ribs along its entire trunk to 'puff'. Both the inhalation and exhalation are disturbingly loud (75 decibels - the same volume as a vacuum cleaner at 1 m/yard).

Puff adders are the sluggards of the snake world. During the day they lie about cryptically in thickets or rocks, and at night they lie about cryptically on pathways waiting for edible things to stumble into them. Of course this indolent lifestyle has its consequences: although they only grow to about 1.2 m (4 ft) in length, they get embarrassingly rotund, weighing up to 7 kg (15 lbs). If given unlimited food in captivity, they'll literally eat themselves to death.

Puff adders are responsible for more than 60% of serious snake bites in southern Africa. Their long fangs (12-18mm/0.5-0.7") are capable of penetrating soft leather and they inject a potent cytotoxin that causes severe swelling, pain and necrosis. Around 10% of untreated bites prove fatal (due to kidney failure or complications from the swelling) but loss of an appendage is much more common.

Despite the puff adder's reputation, this is the snake I've grown to feel most warmly towards. Why would someone who's snake-phobic feel warmly toward any legless beast? Gratitude, pure and simple.

You see, in my experience, puff adders behave with exemplary restraint. Once, when I was crawling about a termite mound, neatly piling up mongoose droppings (so I could tell if anyone subsequently visited the latrine), I suddenly realised that my scrabbling fingers were only 2" away from the nose of a very large puff adder. It lay perfectly still but its golden eyes were watching me intently. I'm not sure how it felt when a look of horrified recognition passed over my features, but it maintained its perfect immobility.

In a more testing situation, once (while walking the dogs) I glanced down to see a puff adder right beneath my feet. The snake's thickened body was coiled up beside the track, but its head and neck lay out across the path (presumably in wait for passing rodents). I'd actually passed over the snake before I saw it, but not so my dog, who was following along behind me. With horror, I watched as she lowered her hind paw directly down on to the snake's head. But to my amazement, at the very last moment, the adder flicked its head sideways, out of her way, and the dog marched on, quite oblivious. I think I lost a few years off my life, but I can't help but feel profound gratitude that it did not strike.

A coat of many colours. During spring, male puff adders trail females (who waft an alluring pheromone) and neck wrestle each other to win their regard. Mothers bear 20-40 mini adders in late summer.