January 2020

JANUARY 2020

Twenty twenty is well under way now and fortunately we have had some rainfall during the month. Not much. Only 195mm. We have not yet reached halfway of our average annual rainfall figures yet, we are at 441mm for the season so far but there is still time. The rainfall we have had has still been nice and gentle with little run-off, resulting in thick, lush vegetation. Because of this, I encountered a whole bunch of exciting wildlife during the month and below you can find some of those that I managed to capture with my camera:

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A big, beautiful Large Orange Acraea, Acraea Anacreon, enjoying the nectar of a False Gerbera, Haplocarpa scaposa. A slow, lazy flight is characteristic of the genus because of the presence of toxins in their bodies. Not all predators, especially birds, know this though. So the butterfly's body is covered in a thick, rubbery integument so that, if a bird does try to eat it, the skin won't break before expelling some toxins and causing the predator to release the butterfly, unharmed! The main food source for the larvae is the River Rice bush, Cliffortia linearifolia, which is very common along the banks of our mountain streams.

Along these same mountain streams, in the thickets created by the River Rice bush, you will also have a good chance of encountering the endemic, meaning it is only found here (eastern South Africa and Eswatini), Goldtail Damselfly, Allocnemis leucosticta, pictured above. This is one of the easiest Damselflies to identify in the region because of the unique gold tip to the end of it's abdomen.

This is a Sawfly, Arge taeniata, the most primitive member of the Hymenoptera order (bees, wasps and ants). Unlike the rest of the order, a sawfly does not have a narrow restriction between the thorax and abdomen, making it rather easy to identify. Another striking difference between the Sawfly and other Hymenopterans is the fact that the female's ovipositor has not been modified into a stinger, instead it has remained as an ovipositor but with serrated edges so that it can saw its way into plant tissue in which to lay her eggs. This species cuts a slit into the underside epidermis of a Pelargonium leaf and deposits an egg within, together with a dose of hormones that causes local plant tissue to swell around the egg, creating a safe environment. When the larva, who looks very much like a worm caterpillar, hatches, it chews a hole to the outside world , exits and begins to devour the leaves. The pupal stage is spent in a neatly woven, silken cocoon. Male specimens have yet to be found, suggesting they may reproduce parthenogenetically, like the female being cloned over and over. Well, there you have it: A wasp with the lifestyle of a moth. 

I posted a little blurb on these butterflies last year during their "migration" here on the estate but thought I should mention them again since I have seen on the news that they are exceptionally numerous in Gauteng this year. It's a Brown-veined White, Belenois aurota, and they originate in the Karoo area in the south east of the country and disperse, rather than migrate, in a north easterly direction feeding on nectar the whole way across the country. They don't stop there either, they continue to fly. over the ocean, in a north easterly direction towards Madagascar but never actually make it there. The five species of larval food plant (Shepard's Tree, Bastard Shepard's Tree, Bush Cherry, Bead Bean and Wild Caper Bush) must lose a lot of foliage to the caterpillars of this butterfly in years like this. 

This photo shows a Long-legged Sugar ant, Camponotus eugeniae, tending aphids on a Ragwort plant. I mentioned some amazing facts about the fecundity of aphids in my July 2019 blog, adding how important their enemies were in keeping their numbers down. The aphids though, are certainly not taking things lying down and actively employ guards to protect themselves when the opportunity presents itself. In this case the aphids attract ants with a sweet excretion called honeydew, which is the still-nutritious waste of the copious amounts of plant sap that they consume. I watched as this ant approached an aphid and began stroking it with its antennae. The aphid produced a honeydew from its backside and if you look carefully, you will see the drop of honeydew in the ant's jaws. These big, aggressive ants become protective of the sap-suckers and defend them against enemies like Ladybirds, their larva and others (like Lacewing larvae). 

Another butterfly, but this one the endemic Lydenburg Opal, Chrysoritis aethon. The well known Lydenburg trader, Thomas Ayers, discovered this Opal in this area in 1879 and it wasn't collected again until Pennington collected a specimen in 1934 when gold mining was in full swing around here. With regards to the above association of aphids and ants, you would be interested to know that this butterfly cannot survive without the help of  Cocktail ants, Crematogaster sp., during its larval stage. In fact, the entire Lycaenidae family of butterflies rely on ants to some degree. The gravid female butterfly finds a Quilted Blue Bush, Diospyros lycioides guerta, or other Pear-from-the-gods plants but only deposits an egg on it if it is infested with Cocktail ants. The ants pick up the egg and take it back to their nearby nest, where they protect it and pamper the caterpillar after it hatches for honeydew. The larva leaves the ant nest in the night to feed on its plant food and returns again when it needs to rest. Some Lycaenid larvae actually eat the ant larvae in their final instar and the ants still do not harm them! This relationship between butterflies and ants is called MYRMECOPHILY. Of the 668 species of butterfly found in the country, 318 are in the Lycaenidae and 55% of them are obligately associated with ants! Amazing what a bit of sweet honeydew can do.

AAARGH! What a horrifying last sight if you were a prey item to this Red-legged Centipede, Cormocephalus nitidus. The yellow, pincer-like arms ending in razor-sharp claws contain the venom glands, while the venom is hypodermically injected into the victim through the claws which remain fastened to the victim while the centipede chews it up. I only managed to get such an amazing shot of this centipede because it was actually freshly dead when I found it drowned in a stream while adventuring with Fraser Moore (Rock Solid, unit 22) high above Solitude valley. The world of invertebrates is like an alien horror movie!

One of the more noticeable trees this month has been the Pom-pom Tree, Dais cotinifolia, its spherical inflorescens dripping with rain pictured above. These ping-pong ball sized pom-poms festoon the tree even when the tree is still young. That is not the only reason why these trees have been cultivated in Europe since the early 1700s and are sold in nurseries worldwide. They are also fast growing, have an aesthetically pleasing round crown, produce copious amounts of flowers, are evergreen in milder climates and the leaves are lush and large, making this a perfect garden specimen. 

In December 2018 I hiked up to the summit of Mount Anderson with Wendy Beaumont and her friends and came across this little dwarf version of a Pineapple Lily. I thought it was just a stunted version, because of the extremely shallow soil at the locale, of the Common Pineapple Lily, Eucomis autumnalis, as they were also flowering nearby, and let it go. A few weeks ago I attended a plant specialist weekend and remember one of the botanists mentioning a dwarf species of Pineapple Lily that was only recently described. I noted it and then forgot about it until this month when I was up near the summit where I found one that had just finished flowering, and it reminded me to check up on it. It is a Dwarf Pineapple Lily, Eucomis sonnetteana, and although it was first encountered at the end of 2012 on the Morgenzen farm near Pilgrim's Rest, it was only officially described in 2019 and introduced to the public in the "Flowering Plants of Africa vol.66 2019". The small stature is the normal size and other differences to the common one is that they are restricted to 2000 masl and over, the white, not green, flowers and the foetid smell given off by the flowers that attract Flesh Flies who pollinate them.

This was a very difficult photo to attain because Chevron Pond Skaters, Eurymetra natalensis, never stay still while they rapidly skate across the water in search of food. They have minute hairs on the bottom of their legs that allow them to float using the surface tension of the water. These minute hairs are also very sensitive, allowing them to feel the vibrations caused by invertebrates splashing around in the water, to which they will respond by rapidly skating over to the scene of the struggle and pouncing on the victim and devouring it!

This very ugly, large fly is the common Flesh Fly, Sarcophaga pachtyli, and it is recognizable as a male because the eyes do not meet in the middle. They are attracted to fresh faeces and rotting foodstuff by smell and when they arrive there, they lap the fluids from the mess. This is also where they are bound to meet a mate because the smell attracts flies from all over. After mating is complete and the larvae have developed within her, she will give birth to live, very active young on the faeces or rotting foodstuff where they will devour the solids, race through their instars and pupate in situ, emerging as adults all within two days!

Where the new Zebra trail meets the high altitude mountain stream above Troutkloof waterfall, the slopes are dotted with Proteas, both the Common Sugarbush, Protea caffra and the Silver Sugarbush, P. roupelliae. It is the latter which is particularly attractive to the Gurney's Sugarbird, Promerops gurneyi, as this is the tree that they not only get nectar from the flowers but also use as their favoured platform to build their small, cup-shaped nests. In this instance, the path was level with the top of the Sugarbush and the Sugarbird was preening itself just 3 meters away from me. It was so close I even got to see it's long, transparent, spaghetti-like tongue! This endemic bird is quite sought after by keen birders as it's distribution is limited to the highlands of eastern South Africa, Swaziland, the Waterberg and Soutpansberg and the Eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and neighbouring Mozambique. They are local migrants and in this area they move to the lower lying suburban gardens in the winter and return to the mountains for the summertime where they often use the same tree to nest in year after year. They feed on the nectar provided by the Sugarbush but also take nectar from Bottlebrush trees, Tree Fuschia, Aloes and Pokers. They subsidise this with insects and feed the chicks exclusively on invertebrates. If you want to add this lifer to your list, just patiently hang out in that area for a while during the summer months and I can almost guarantee that you will see one up close.

I could not miss this striking moth resting on a River Rice bush (again!) on the Kliprots stream. I discovered it is a Loxostege venustalis from the Pyraustidae family, which is a family jam-packed with serious pests to crops and stored grains, like the meal moths that eat stored mielie-meal, leaving silken passages and excrement behind; or the Karoo caterpillar that , when in large numbers, strips the highly valued fodder plant, Pentzia incana, of all its foliage, leaving nothing for the sheep; or the Bungee Worms in the Kruger Park and surrounds that strip foliage off the trees, covering the bare branches with their silken passages in which they rest (if disturbed, they run and jump from the passage, trailing a silken thread behind them like a bungee cord); and Wax Moths that sneak into a bee hive at night and lay their eggs in cracks and nookies. The caterpillars damage the hive so badly that the bees often abandon and relocate! There is one species that is beneficial, though, and it is called the Prickly Pear moth, Cactoblastis cactorum, which is a serious natural enemy of the highly invasive Prickly Pear, Opuntia sp., and was successful in eradicating the Prickly Pears in Australia before being released here in South Africa about 50 years ago. Unfortunately, due to high predation and other factors, it was not as successful here even after more than 500 million eggs were released on Prickly Pears covering more than a million hectares. The Cochineal insect was later introduced to help the moth and the project was finally successful. 

This is an adult Mottled-winged Antlion, Palpares caffer, dislodged from it's daytime roost within the grass tufts as I traversed the grasslands around Mount Prospect. Ant Lion larvae are more well known because they are the insect that digs a perfectly round conical pit in soft sand and eat the ants that fall into it. The larvae of this species, though, does not dig a conical pit but just buries itself randomly beneath the soft sand and ambushes any insect that walks over it!

If you have visited the estate this summer, you will undoubtedly have encountered the Cream-striped Owl, Cyligramma latona, around lights at night inside and outside your house. The name Owl or Owlet refers to the huge Owl-like eye spots on the upper forewings. They belong to the Noctuidae family which is the biggest family of moths and also contains some serious pests like Cutworms, Bollworms, Army worms and Stalk Borers. Most larvae in the family rest under the soil in the day and emerge at night to feed on their target plants. Some are pests as adults like those that suck sap from ripe fruit or those that sit on a bovid's lower eyelid and suck the juices from the eyeball, often transmitting eye diseases to domestic livestock.

This is a close-up of a Darkling beetle, or the more well known common name Tok Tokkie in the South African vernacular, from the Tenebrionidae family of beetles. The male attracts the female by tapping his abdomen rhythmically on the ground, producing a pleasant, soft tapping sound that carries surprisingly far in the night. Because of this, the male is easy to identify with the brown, velvety patch on the underside of his abdomen (see inset) which is the part that touches the ground when tapping. Once the female finds the male and mating is complete, the female lays her eggs in the sand and the larvae, once hatched, eat the roots of plants. These are the larvae that you can buy at most pet shops to feed your exotic pets. Njombo, the Meerkat that used to live here on the estate with the previous managers used to go through hundreds of them a month, making him the fattest Meerkat in town.

This Needle-nosed Horsefly, Philoliche aethiopica, was fast asleep when I discovered him in the early morning dew-drenched grasslands. My movement, trying to get up close to him, caused him to awaken, clean the dew drops off his loooong nose with his front legs, and then wipe his eyes almost clear with those same legs before I got this photo.

In the deepest and thickest of our Afro-temperate forests on the estate you may find this large foliose lichen called Tree Lungwort, Lobaria pulmonaria, attached to the stems of trees and fallen logs. I have blurbed about lichens before and how they are composed of a fungus and an algae living in symbiosis. Well, this lichen has a symbiotic relationship with those two plus a cyanobacterium, making it a lichen composed of three different organisms from three different kingdoms of living things! The fungus provides structural support and some minerals gleaned from the substrate to which it is attached, while the algae provides sugars through photosynthesis and the cyanobacterium fixes atmospheric nitrogen, enhancing nutrient availability. This is a cosmopolitan species that is on an alarming decline in Europe because it is sensitive to acid rain and air pollution. It has been used medicinally for centuries like as an antiseptic to rub on wounds and a hot water extract that has shown to have anti-inflammatory and ulcer-preventing properties. Naturally, its biggest enemy are grazing snails.