Zambian Wildlife and Bletherings therein: May 2014

Friday 9 May 2014

Chamaeleo dilepis, Leach, 1819

Welcome to a bit of a picture heavy post.

This lovely lizard is the subject of a bit of a family obsession:

Photographed in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia in December 2013, using Olympus E-420 DSLR
and Zuiko 70-300 telephoto lens.

As far as current knowledge goes, this is the only member of its family native to the Lusaka area. A significant chunk of my school time was spent retrieving these lizards from the centre of a panicked crowd and removing them to a safe distance.

There is a widespread distrust of chameleons in Sub-Saharan Africa - in Lusaka, the traditional myth seems to be that if you are bitten, you are cursed and one of your family is going to die. In the city, this is generally transmuted to their being highly venomous, or harbouring deadly bacteria on their teeth - All of which is patently not true. An angry specimen, with sharply defined markings and throat inflated to show brightly coloured skin usually hidden in folds, can look quite imposing, but having handled countless terrified individuals through my life, and been bitten well over twenty times (my father, notably, once demonstrated their harmlessness by allowing one to bite him on the tongue), I can confirm that it's bite is less painful and no more dangerous than being pinched by someone with medium-length fingernails.

Have a look at another individual pretending to be twig while I babble about language:


Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia in October 2011, using Olympus E-420 with 40-150mm Zuiko lens

I'm not familiar with any Afrikaans names for this creature - a Chewa term is Birimankhwe, considering the more-or-less interchangeable nature of 'L' and 'R' in many Zambian dialects, its Soli name of Bilimankhwe is essentially identical. Kalilombe and Likakatuwe (both Chewa) are usually for larger specimens; Nanzikambe and Tonkhwetonkhwe are also listed by my Chewa dictionary, although I don't recall hearing either of these, or Likakatuwe, in use.

A closely related species is present in southern parts of Europe; in Spanish, Camaleón, which is more-or-less representative of most European names for this lizard (including the English Chameleon).

Further east, a number of species are found on the Indian subcontinent, and the Tamil பச்சோந்தி

(~Pachonti) is possibly my favourite non-Zambian name.

The only species known to be present over much of Zambia, and extending across most of Sub-Saharan Africa, in English this is known as the Flap Necked Chameleon; internationally, it is most reliably referred to by its Linnaean binomial, which is:

Chamaeleo dilepis

Leach, 1819

As previously noted, no other Chameleon species are known from most of Zambia (with the exception of a Nyika plateau endemic) - which, given the diversity of species in East Africa and Southern Africa, is possibly due to a lack of any real study rather than a missing diversity. Tellingly, in a country which is naturally forested, the only known chameleon is one of the least forest-dependent of the non-dwarf chameleons, and may simply have been the only species to survive widespread deforestation - often by fire in the inhabited portions of the country.

Although it is most readily encountered moving between trees, it is not limited to . Eggs, as with several other chameleon species, are buried underground, and, in areas with a marked winter season, won't hatch until a year later.

Smaller juveniles - like this hatchling from Chongwe - seem much happier on the ground than adults. This one was found sleeping on a grass-stalk a couple of feet above the waterlogged earth during a thunderstorm (only feet from the previously posted Zonocerus elegans) in January 2014.

Although individual colour changes are usually limited to darker or lighter tones of a base colour, with an increased apparency of dark stripes and spots being the common reaction to a human approach, the species displays an extraordinary diversity in individual colours; from rusty orange (Chongwe, October 2011) to a lime green (Chongwe, March 2013):

Although abirimankhwe are generally of quite sensitive temperament, young individuals are often not overly concerned when handled - although the polka-dot appearance of the specimen in the right hand image is an indicator of stress, less than a minute later, it was comfortable enough to catch a grasshopper from its perch on my index finger.

Despite a dark spotting being associated with distress, this large female - bright green and darkly spotted when found trying to hide from passing cars on a road, fading to a leafy green before her release - seemed to grow darker as she headed for the canopy of a large tree, in a quite different pattern to her (not photographed) distress speckles:

Photographed in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia in September 2011,
using Olympus E-420 DSLR and 40-150mm Zuiko lens.

And with that rather lengthy preamble, and a record six pictures in one post, on with the taxonomy:

- Chamaeleoninae

- Chameleonidae

- 'Acrodonta'

A bit of a questionable taxon, but see also Agama armata

- Iguania

As noted in a recent reptile post, things get iffy and unsatisfactorily named here. The next grouping on from Iguania is with snakes and allied groups - for which see also Psammophis mossambicus and Thelotornis capensis; and thereafter with the Skinks and wall lizards (e.g. Afroablepharus wahlbergii, Trachylepis varia ,Trachylepis striata wahlbergi and Zootoca vivipara) and eventually the geckos (for example Lygodactylus capensis). This completes the:

- Squamata
- Lepidosauria

- Lepidosauromorpha

- Sauria

See also Caprimulgus pectoralis, Tockus alboterminatus, Larus argentatus, Sterna hirundo, Burhinus vermiculatus, Troglodytes troglodytes, Megaceryle maxima, Ardea goliath, Chalcophaps indica and Stigmatopelia senegalensis.

- Diapsida

- Romeriida

- Reptilia

- Amniota

See also Hipposideros vittatus and Syncerus caffer.

- Reptiliomorpha

- Tetrapoda

See also Rana temporaria, Chiromantis xerampelina, Breviceps poweri and Kassina senegalensis.

- Sarcopterygii

- Osteichthys

Monday 5 May 2014

Zonocerus elegans (Thurnberg, 1815)

Today, that is to say the 5th of May, is surprisingly enough the date of the annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations in the US and Mexico, which - despite a series of five second films from a Los Angeles comedy group that suggest its origins are unknowable - celebrates a key Mexican victory over French forces in the American Civil War.

I've never been to Mexico. Neither has this:

Photographed in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia in January 2014, using Olympus E-420 DSLR, Zuiko 40-150mm lens and 2 KOOD magnifiers.

This delightful - unless you're trying to grow certain crops - Mnunkhadala is a widespread Sub-Saharan blubber-locust which can very occasionally reach densities sufficient for it to become a minor pest, but usually inflicts no real damage on the broad-leafed plants it feeds on. Mnunkhadala is quite a specific name: typically translated just as the English name of this species - the Elegant Grasshopper - which can also refer to a closely related species from West Africa, where Chewa-derived languages and dialects are not native. I'm uncertain as to whether the Chewa term also refers to other blubber locusts, distinguishing them from similar, less toxic true locusts, but I digress.

The link to Cinco de Mayo is a bit tenuous - Mexico's national Arthropod is the grasshopper (Chapolin in Náhuatl; Saltamontes in Spanish). Although on occasion Chapolin refers to a specific edible genus (and the species featured today is notably inedible), I, having never been to the New World, lack pictures of that genus, and this one's vibrant colouring put me in mind of what I've seen of Mexican artwork.

As a further view, here's the whole insect:

Same grasshopper, same day, same place. One less KOOD magnifier, I think.

As previously noted, a lot of locusts (from various parts of the family Acrididae) around the world are edible, and in both Mexico and Zambia, can be a major source of protein in rural areas.

The Blubber Locusts, family Pyrgomorphidae, are generally not edible. They generally eat toxic plants, and built their own chemical arsenal by retaining those toxins in their tissues - as is advertised by their generally vibrant colours.

As I now have to return to my actual job, I'll add the taxonomy and links later, and for now just note that to avoid the confusion of language, this Mnunkhadala's Linnaean binomial is:

Zonocerus elegans

(Thurnberg, 1815)

So with that, have a good Cinco de Mayo, be nice to some grasshoppers, and that is all (for now) folks!

Saturday 3 May 2014

Psammophis mossambicus (Peters, 1882) and a lengthy ramble on reptile taxonomy.

I think it's worth telling you that I am terrified of a fair few things.

One is being alone in water deeper than a foot. Crocodiles are another. Sharks were, for a while, and it's not unreasonable to suppose that the cold dread I experience when I'm swimming in a murky creek without anyone to use as a human shield is because I watched Jaws well before I was old enough.
I'm scared of being trapped in a crowd - hearing more than a couple of simultaneous conversations nauseates me. I'm not comfortable sharing silence with strangers - when I was alone in a windowless lab with a lovely Welsh girl, working on my BSc dissertation study while she worked on her MRes, I was absolutely terrified of her until we broke our respective silences, and I knew that she wasn't just sitting there judging me and/or plotting to kill me somehow
I don't like having people in my blind spot, even if they are talking. I love cliff-top walks, but if I'm within four feet of the edge and I have my shoes on, I find it extremely difficult to step forward (as an aside, if I find myself within six or so feet of water that may contain a crocodile, I have quite the opposite response, and find it difficult to stop running).
I get nervous around powertools - too many scary movies too early - and the sound of trains in the dark. Dogs I don't know, other people's parents, other people's spit, rollercoasters, the Knife-Edge bridge at Mosi-oa-tunya, touching food that other people will eat... I could go on.

This, though, is something that has never been an issue for me:

Photographed in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia in August 2011, using an Olympus E-420 DSLR and a Zuiko 40-150mm lens.

Europe doesn't have many snakes; Britain has only three, and as you might expect from this, not until really quite recently has it expanded its vocabulary to include species-specific names - even words such as the Greek-rooted 'Python' have only been in English for a couple of centuries.

Zambia has around seventy species of snake, some of which are harmless, some of which are potently venomous - some of which again will bite readily if they perceive a threat, some of which are unwilling to bite even if trodden on. Some will raise a hood and spit at people a few metres away but flee from people close by, similar species will raise a hood but not spit at a certain distance, but just strike if surprised close to.

The long and short of this is that there are a lot of words for specific snakes in Chewa and its sister-languages. The mildly venomous (nausea and mild to intense pain) species pictured above has the name of Chidyamsana in Chewa, or the Olive Grass Snake, Mozambique Whip-Snake or Mozambique Whip-Snake in English.

It's quite retiring, as one might expect from a small, thin snake, but if cornered will capitalise on its resemblance to the not-too-distantly related Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis), and strike readily. As noted, it's not absolutely harmless, and with a good bite, could make you feel fairly sorry for yourself for a while, but, allergic or psychosomatic reactions notwithstanding, it's far from deadly.

Unfortunately, that resemblance that sometimes means it can send its attackers running now often leads this handy member of the suburban rodent - and indeed snake - control crew to be hacked to death.

Although it is readily confused with smaller specimens of the (much bigger) black mamba, it's shape is quite unlike it - very slender, and often appearing much longer than it actually is as a result, it more closely resembles the arboreal (and rarely seen) green mambas in form; its head, if seen from any angle other than the front, is easily distinguished by its short, pointed form (as opposed to the elegant elongated octagon of a mamba's head, aptly described as 'coffin-shaped' from above). Behold:

It might be better if I had a picture of a mamba to compare it to - I don't, but ARKive hosts a number of pictures (click here to visit them) of the species, which show the difference quite clearly.

With those points covered, it's probably time for the taxonomy. The snake itself is

Psammophis mossambicus

(Peters, 1882)

But from here on, it can get messy.

Snake taxonomy, by the way, is made atrocious by the existence of that enormous waste-bin taxon heretofore known as the family Colubridae, and in an attempt to reflect the actual relationships between snake species, I seem to be using a taxonomy that isn't necessarily used anywhere else; I put this lovely snake in the:

- Psammophiidae

which is usually treated as a subfamily of the troubling family Lamprophiidae - which is itself still treated by some as a subfamily of the afore-mentioned Colubridae. I'm treating them instead as a sister family within the

- Elapoidea

(along with all manner of snakes we'll be discussing in later posts). This is united with the majority of familiar snakes in the:

- Caenophidia

which does include the various colubrids - although most are venom-less constrictors, the only one featured on the blog thus far is the venomous Thelotornis capensis. These are united with the boas and pythons in the

- Alethinophidia

which excludes only a very few rather divergent members of the larger:

- Serpentes

Which are somewhere in the taxonomic mess otherwise known as the

-Squamata

Within which, the snakes cluster with the iguanians (such as Agama armata ), followed by the skinks and wall lizards (e.g. Afroablepharus wahlbergii, Trachylepis varia ,Trachylepis striata wahlbergi and Zootoca vivipara) and eventually the geckos (for example Lygodactylus capensis). All this falls within the:

- Lepidosauria

of which the only other extant group is the New Zealand endemic order Rhynchocephalia, the two species of Tuatara.

- Lepidosauromorpha

- Sauria

Although after this, the taxonomy gets a little more straightforward, this contains the Archosaurs (Crocodiles and dinosaurs, including birds such as Caprimulgus pectoralis, Tockus alboterminatus, Larus argentatus, Sterna hirundo, Burhinus vermiculatus, Troglodytes troglodytes, Megaceryle maxima, Ardea goliath, Chalcophaps indica and Stigmatopelia senegalensis), and should really include the Anapsids - tortoises, turtles and various dead relatives. But that's another story.

- Diapsida

- Romeriida

- Reptilia

- Amniota

See also Hipposideros vittatus and Syncerus caffer.

- Reptiliomorpha

- Tetrapoda

See also Rana temporaria, Chiromantis xerampelina, Breviceps poweri and Kassina senegalensis.

- Sarcopterygii

- Osteichthys

Friday 2 May 2014

Nephila fenestrata, Thorell, 1859, or possibly N. senegalensis (Walckenaer, 1842), and a warning for the phobics.

I have mentioned before that I'm quite fond of spiders, and it's probably been apparent in those posts that I am a touch unsympathetic towards people who have worked themselves up so much about something essentially harmless that they'll even hide from an image...

I wasn't always that way. When I was about 8 years old, my dear uncle informed me that the brownish spiders building their webs in the shower were close relatives of the black widow, known as brown button spiders and possessing extremely potent venom. This wasn't entirely dissimilar to something bearing a resemblance to the truth, and this little seed of information threatened to grow into a full blown phobia, before I gained a house-mate who overreacted to wasps in much the same way.

Nevertheless, as this is a member of one group of spiders that I still would be quite uncomfortable handling, I will give spider-fearing men - and women - fair warning: You might not want to look at the pictures.

I will leave it up to you whether you let an irrational fear own you, or take that fear and punch it repeatedly in the face, saying 'Hey, you, fear! Listen up - spiders are extraordinary and valuable members of society, and even if I don't want to touch them, I'm not going to freak out over a bunch of pixels on the interweb. Yeah, I said web, fear, because I'm not afraid of pixellated silk!'

Or something to that effect.

I think that's enough pre-amble that real fraidy-cats should be able to click away without seeing the Kanguade (Chewa for spider) of the day:

You may notice that the pictures on this post are without caption; they are all taken in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia, scattered through February and March 2013, although the spider itself is present from the middle-to-late rains (in the late season of the 2013-14 rains, they only showed up in Chongwe in December), and usually persist until July or August.

Unfortunately, this means that all these photographs feature incompletely mature individuals, which can make I.D. a little tricky. For example:

The distinct yellow 'window' on the underside of this little lady would comfortably identify her as

Nephila fenestrata

Thorell, 1859

Also known as the black-legged Nephila (The genus' actual common name, 'Golden Orb-Weaver' is longer than the genus name itself, so we'll stick with Nephila), or Windowed Nephila which has a number of subspecies - and some pictures online certainly resemble this series, but whether those actually belong to this species, or are just hopeful I.D.s by people who've taken the stance that this is more windowed and black legged than it is red-legged or banded legged (the two most promising alternative species; also, in a not entirely unrelated note, the other two species present in numbers in South Africa, arguably the most comprehensively-studied microfauna in Sub-Saharan Africa)

But both these pictures were taken in shady areas, which necessitated the use of partial flash - which masks the translucency of parts of these oversized spiderlings' (okay, a little beyond spiderling) bodies. Which brings us to the third picture:

This one, as you can probably tell, was caught in early-morning sunlight, which didn't simply allow us to see the transparency of the legs, but it's exaggerated it somewhat, while, to an extent, masking the brushes of dark red hair on three pairs of legs; without that, it seems as though it could grow into an adult Nephila inaurata, or Red-legged Nephila (it can't - there are other more convincing differences in colour and range).

Even with the brushes, it's not an excessive stretch of the imagination to translate this to the colouring of Nephila senegalensis, which other people of uncertain credentials have done online.

And, if we take a look at this larger subadult - losing a battle to a Sphecid wasp (probably Sceliphron sp.), we see more of that non-black colouring on the legs:

The windowing of the abdomen is also reduced to two yellow lines, and the ratio of black to orange on the palp - the little mouth-leg held in the wasps mandibles - is different from each of those seen in the younger individuals already shown, but - as with all the individuals photographed, the femorae (first long bit) of all legs are black - whereas in all images of N. senegalensis I can find on the web or in my (rather limited) books, from Kenya to South Africa, the last (and usually second last) femur is orange-red.

Two things prevent me from ruling out either of these species.

1) They are known to be variable, and patterns in adults aren't always readily extrapolated from subadult patterns.

2) It's possible that, despite the saturation of the environment to the point that the dense populations of these spiders weren't separated by more than two or three metres within the entire area these were photographed, there were multiple species, and possibly even hybrids, in the mix.

Until I go out for longer, and get a more continuous series of photographs of the a specific web-group over time and into adulthood (Wasps' and Bulbuls' appetites permitting), I will favour N. fenestrata for these images, but be unable to rule out N. senegalensis.

I'll add the taxonomy tomorrow - now, with a quick illustration of why these are known as Golden Orb Weavers, I'm off to bed. Behold their silk:

Yup. It's a rich yellow colour, poetically known as gold. Not really noticeable on fine strands most of the time, but on the thicker threads that anchor the webs, it's a handy clue that you're looking at Nephila.

And, for now, that's all, folks: Goodnight.

Additional: here's the taxonomy.

- Nephilidae

- Araneoidea

See also Enoplognatha ovata and Argiope bruennichi.

- Entelegynae

See also Alopecosa barbipes, Phrynarachne rugosa, Hyllus argyrotoxus, Enoplognatha ovata, Argiope bruennichi and Pardosa amentata.

- Araneoclada

Introductory Blether.

Welcome, and stuff.

If you're one of those strange people that don't like seeing pictures of invertebrates or small vertebrates, well done for coming here - although if it was by accident, you may wish to leave. There's lots of text, which may or may not interest you, and no consistent format. Because life's family tree is awesome, there is a nod to this in the organiser, which is a taxonomic "contents" page updated less frequently than it should be.

Also, while most of what you'll see on this blog is Zambian wildlife, occasional posts feature animals from other countries, and sometimes these are not wild. This is noted in the text.

Zambian Wildlife and Bletherings therein

Pages