FEBRUARY 2021

 FEBRUARY 2021

February, a nice short, wet month, flew by in a whizz! We had an average of 156mm rainfall over the estate during the month, bringing the average seasonal total to 904mm, which is our annual average already. The lowest recording was in the west from Patrick's gate at 106mm for the month and a seasonal total of 560mm. The highest measurement was from Pebble Creek in the north of the estate with 210mm for the month and a seasonal total, so far, of 1116mm. That is a vast difference considering there is only 6,3km between the two rain gauges, as the crow flies! Those of you who have visited recently will also notice that the roads have been repaired and are in great condition after our visit by Eloise in January. The estate is green and lush and life abounds! Below are some of the natural highlights of the month:  

A wet February is a super time to go on a mushroom hunt and, if you're lucky, in the depths of the moist forests on the estate, you may stumble upon these incredible little Fluted Bird's Nest mushrooms, Cyathus striatus. And yes, they look just like tiny (10mm X 15mm) bird's nests with eggs inside, don't they? Even though they belong to the Basidiomycota division of fungi that simply release spores in situ, they have a method of spreading spores similar to the more advanced Ascomycota that use water drops and other methods to disperse spores. The "eggs" are called peridioles and they produce spores within themselves. When it rains, a raindrop will hit the "nest" with force and the splash will eject the peridioles into the surrounds. The peridioles are attached to the "nest" by a thin cord with a mass of sticky mycelium at the end and so when the peridioles are ejected, the sticky end may attach to a piece of dead wood and, later, the surface of the peridiole will weather away and expose the spores which will then germinate. Besides being used in the production of certain antibiotics, in 2013 an Israeli professor, Prof. Solomon Wasser, patented a medicinal product derived from these little mushrooms that is to treat pancreatic cancer.

This massive, leathery caterpillar will one day become a beautiful Vine Hawkmoth, Hippotion celereo (see blog of September 2019). I found it on it's Impatiens host food plant in the forest around the Steenkamp's waterfalls. It hatched alone on the plant I found it on or perhaps one of its neighbours and began to eat voraciously to get to this size. It relies on it's camouflage to protect it from its many enemies but will regurgitate the contents of its foregut, together with toxins it stores there from its foodplants, as a defense from smaller predators like ants and other insects. I mention in that blog that many orchids rely on Hawkmoths, with their long proboscis, as specialised pollinators. Well, I learned an interesting fact to illustrate this: In 1822 a French botanist described a very rare orchid from Madagascar. The orchid has spurs (long nectaries) reaching as long as 29 centimeters. Darwin, knowing that the nectar of the flower is stored at the end of these spurs, predicted that there should be a moth on Madagascar that has a proboscis that can reach to the end of these spurs and his friend and colleague, Wallace, published a "wanted" article with a diagram of what the moth may look like. Twenty one years later, the moth was discovered and described and, yes, it's probiscis is 32cm long!  

This moss covered bracket mushroom is called a Cracked Bracket, Phellinus rimosus, and I found it on the lower trunk of a huge African Almond tree in the kloof forest near the Steenkamps waterfalls. The big differences between this fungi and the others I have been featuring on these blogs is that these are perennial, living for many years and adding a concentric ring each year as it grows, and that they are parasitic on their host tree, causing a brown heart-rot that weakens the tree over many years and finally kills it. Not very good for the tree but very medicinal for us; This bracket has been used in Japan, China, Australia (by the aboriginals) and Africa for thousands of years for many ailments but interest in its medicinal qualities was renewed after WWII when it was used on the Meshima islands to treat patients shipped there who were affected by the atomic bombings. In 2015 it was found that extracts from the brackets provided a significant protective effect against acute alcohol-induced lipid peroxidation in the liver, kidneys and brains of mice. It has also been found that ethyl-acetate and methanol extracts provide significant anti-tumor activity. Methanol extracts have also been proved to have successful activity against bacteria like Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium and others. Besides being a great pharmacy, the Cracked Bracket is rather beautiful with it's barky, moss-covered roof with a velvet rim and it's soft, skin-like sporangium below.

Jeesh! I didn't see this little critter until it moved when I was trying to pick a leaf from an Escarpment Rice Bush high up above Kingfisher Lodge (unit 6) recently! It is a young Flower Mantid, Harpagomantis tricolor, and it uses the same strategy as the Crab Spider (see blogs of March 2018 and May 2020) to capture it's prey aside from two main differences: The Mantid does not have venom so it relies on its powerful "forearms" to subdue the insect prey before it chews it up; and the Mantid cannot change it's colour, like the spider, to the colour of the flower. Instead, the Mantid has to find a flower that matches it's colour or it has to wait in amongst the surrounding leaves for it's prey to land on the neighbouring flower. This has got to be one of the best examples of camouflage around. Even its eyes are camouflaged!

While working in the Kloof forests during February I noticed many blobs of white foam on the forest floor and on deadtree stumps and branches. Some of them even have slime trails behind them like a snail trail. No, they are not blobs of pollution. Or blobs of washing foam... They are blobs of Plasmodial Slime Mould. Not an animal or a fungi although it behaves like both. Slime moulds (see blog of January 2021) are single-celled organisms but this type of Slime mould, Fuligo sp. from the class Myxogastria is very different from the Physarum cinereum featured in that blog. I will give you a run-down on the life-cycle of this Plasmodial Slime Mould: A single spore finds itself in a suitable environment, it germinates a few flagellated (have a tail for movement) protoplasts called Swarm Cells (not to be confused with a bee hive). These cells move around their environment eating bacteria and when they meet up with a mate they form a zygote and grow into a plasmodia as they split nuclei. A plasmodia is defined as a living structure of cytoplasm that contains many nuclei, instead of individual cells each with a nucleus. This pasmodia (white blob) feeds on bacteria and other microorganisms and grows in size as other zygotes "swarm" to join and become an interconnected network of protoplasmic strands, with each strand's cytoplasmic contents streaming back and forth within itself. When this mass of single-celled organisms, that now behave like a multi-cellular organism, wants to move, the strand's contents stream in the required direction while protoplasm is withdrawn from the rear, allowing it to move at a top speed of about one millimeter per hour, leaving a snail trail behind. When food becomes scarce, the slime mould's behaviour becomes more fungus like and dries, forming a crust to which the nuclei migrate from within the cytoplasmic mass. This crust forms fungus-like fruiting bodies that produce millions of spores that are released into the air. This is certainly the weirdest living organism that I have ever come across!

I took this photo just below Lone Tree Cottage (unit 3) in the reeds between the road and the cliff. It is of a male Thick-billed Weaver, Ambliospiza albifrons, constructing a nest that he will present to his mate once completed. If she is not entirely satisfied, she will reject it and he will demolish it and construct another one nearby. Interestingly, when he builds the nest, he constructs a cup first and then builds up from there into a ball. Most other weavers construct a vertical ring as a foundation from which they expand into a ball. Thick-billed weavers are polygamous and usually nest in colonies so the scene can become quite frantic as male birds construct multiple nests for multiple mates and mates reject and males demolish then rebuild! In this instance, though, there is no colony and the male has only one mate which infrequently happens and the pair then appear monogamous. Although the male still has it easy and does not contribute to the rearing of the young like a monogamous male would. If the female accepts the nest, she will line the nest and lay two to four eggs, incubate them and feed the chicks once they hatch all on her own. Another difference between these weavers and most other species is that the chicks are fed with regurgitated blobs of mashed insect or fruit where other species feed the chicks with whole bits of food. The chicks are fledged and ready to fly in eighteen days when they leave the nest and learn to fly and feed for themselves. The enormous beak allows this weaver to feed on fruits that others cannot consume because they are too big or hard. Here at Finsbury, the Thick-billed weaver's preferred fruits come from Wild Peach, Forest Knobwood, White Stinkwood and Buffalo Thorn trees. They also jump at the opportunity to feed on Termite winged alates when they take to the air in spring.

I encountered this little Cape Centipede Eater, Aparallactus capensis, in the thickets beside the path that takes one to the Majubane waterfall. With an impressive average life-span of twenty years this slender little snake does not get any longer than 40 centimeters as it moves about under rocks in grasslands and leaf litter in forests and riparian bush in search of it's exclusive food item, Centipedes (see blogs of July 2019 and January 2020). As mentioned there, centipedes are extremely common but usually well hidden in these environments. Also, as mentioned there, centipedes are venomous hunters and so the snake is also venomous and when it attacks a centipede, it bites and chews the centipede, like other rear-fanged snakes, until the fast-acting venom takes effect. Apparently this can become quite a violent affair and may turn into an epic battle. The snake appears immune to the venom of the centipede although there are records of small Cape Centipede Eaters being attacked and eaten by large centipedes! The snake is also prey to hunting spiders and scorpions and other burrowing snakes like the Spotted Harlequin Snake (see blog of October 2020) in whose family it also belongs. It sure is a dog-eat-dog world out there! 

A field of Ribbon-leaved Nerines in a marsh that is the source of the High altitude stream that runs along the Zebra Trail on Goudkoppies. February was also the month when I partook in the annual four day MTPA (Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency) Bioblitz hosted by Mount Anderson Ranch next door. Herewith, MTPA's introduction:

One of Mpumalanga’s key characteristics is its vast grasslands, which contains various rare and endangered species, and serves as an amazing biodiversity asset. However, they are difficult to properly account for in environmental impact assessments, because of their localized distributions and short flowering durations (MTPA, 2014). In addition to that, specialist skills are also required to locate and identify them reliably. Mount Anderson intersects three biomes, namely grassland, savanna and small patches of forest, with grassland being the dominating biome. The grasslands are home to the majority of Mpumalanga’s rare, endemic and threatened species, including various irreplaceable wetlands. Grasslands are vital water-production landscapes, playing a critical role in maintaining the quality and quantity of water entering rivers, streams and aquifers (MTPA, 2014). In addition to their undeniable importance, grasslands occupy approximately 61% of the surface area of the Province and are presently considered to be the most vulnerable and least well-protected of Mpumalanga’s biomes (MTPA, 2014). The source of Mpumalanga’s vast array of species and ecosystems is underpinned by diverse and often uncommon geology (MTPA, 2014). The Province has a myriad of wetlands and numerous important river systems, including, amongst others, the headwaters of the Vaal, Olifants, Nkomati, Crocodile and Usuthu Rivers (MTPA, 2014). Consequently, the natural landscapes of are not only essential for the rich biodiversity they hold, but also because they are critically important for regional and international water security (MTPA, 2014). BioBlitz entails the sampling of an area’s biodiversity over a short period of time, in order to determine which species (rare/endangered etc.) are present in the specified area, and whether they require protection. The goals of the BioBlitz was therefore to pinpoint the level of biodiversity at MAWR as well as its distribution and to identify the amount of endangered/threatened or species new to the area. As part of the BioBlitz program 2021, the MTPA scientists, the MTPA interns and other trained individuals, visited the Mount Anderson Wildlife and Water Catchment Reserve (MAWR). Mount Anderson is a water catchment reserve gazette(d) before 1994, set on 7 300 hectares of dramatic landscape. Although the reserve is still undergoing the process of being approved under the new act- National Environmental Management: Protected Areas (NEM:PA) (together with the rest of us in the MACNR - Jimmy), it is recognized as a protected area and is the first privately owned water catchment (area with high rainfall) reserve in not only the province, but the country as well.

The gang. From left to right: Mervyn Lotter (Control Scientist - Biodiversity Planning), Vaino Prinsloo (Zoologist Terrestrial - Large Mammals), Gerrie Comacho (Zoologist Terrestrial - Large Predators), Jimmy Whatmore (Botany), Willem Van Staden (Botanist), Trent Sinclair (Host, manager of MAWR), Tommy Steyn (Botanist), Malcolm Baines (Sterkspruit Reserve Manager - Entomology), Ronell Niemand (Botanist), Eulalia Jordaan (Student), and Lientjie Cohen (Zoologist Terrestrial - Small Mammals).

A long-legged Sugar ant, Camponotus eugeniae (see blog of January 2020), enjoying the sweet nectar of a Heart-leaf Ministar flower, Alepidea cordifolia. The plant is one of the species that we searched for on the Bioblitz as it is endangered due to uncontrolled harvesting for the traditional muthi trade. Sold at markets as "Ikathazo", the dried rhizomes of the plant are used for the treatment of respiratory tract infections, asthma related issues, sore throat, gastro-intestinal complaints, fever reduction, rheumatism and more. The wild population of the plant has been reduced by 50% in the last 60 years and in 1988 it was estimated that at least 250 000 plants were removed from the wild each year for the muthi trade! This figure has increased although the average travelling time for the harvesters has increased dramatically due to local extinctions of the plant near populated areas.

This is Ronell's field plant pressing station in the back of her bakkie. She pressed as many specimens as she could while we were in the field and here she is preparing to press a Helichrysum reflexum which grows into a beautifully rounded bush with copious flowers in rocky situations at high altitudes. She cares for her pressings like her children and once she has returned home, she "changes their nappies" each day for the first few days until they are dry enough. By this, she means that she will change the moist blotting paper with dry, recycled blotting paper!

Lientjie set up subterranean traps to capture moles and we eagerly joined her in the morning when she dug them up to check if anything was trapped. During the time, she managed to capture a Common Mole-rat (see blog of July 2020) and this special, very rare Golden Mole from the Amblysomus genus. The two are not even distantly related as the Mole-rat is a Rodent and it uses it's ever-growing front incisors to dig through the soil and the Golden Mole belongs to the mammal order Afrosoricida (formerly part of the Insectivora) and they use large, modified front claws to dig their tunnels. Anyway, DNA was extracted from the little chap and has been sent off to help identify the species. Can't wait for the results...

Malcolm Baines from Sterkspruit Nature Reserve next door is passionate about his arthropods. He set up pit-fall traps for spiders, scuttled through the vegetation chasing after numerous little critters and he became largely nocturnal as he spent most nights awake all night collecting moth specimens from his moth traps (above) where he attracted moths onto a white sheet for collection. I can't wait to see the list of species he collected.

Tommy, Willem and I spent a day searching for important plant species with mixed results. We found a lot we were looking for but missed some specials. Here Tommy searches for the illusive Heart-leaf Ministar (above) in it's habitat: Within a meter of running water beside high altitude streams.

About two years ago a new species of plant from the same monocot family, Colchicaceae, as Finsbury's valley-dwelling golden Christmas Bells and the high altitude, pyjama-striped Men-in-a-boat, was being described by taxonomists, the Mpumalanga PSG (see blogs of 16 Feb 2018, Feb 2020 and Nov & Dec 2020) sent me photos and some info on the plant and asked me to keep an eye out for it. Since then I have had this search image in my head and so, while walking with Willem and Tommy very close to where the earlier photo of the field of Nerines was, I immediately recognised the salt-and-pepper flowers for what they were: The recently described Wurmbea burrowsii, named after famous South African botanist and author couple John and Sandy Burrows, part of the PSG group. I am extremely excited about this. It is always rewarding to find something after a long search.

Well, that's it for February. Lots of rain have filled the aquifers in the mountain grasslands so the streams are burbling, the rivers are gushing and the waterfalls are splashing in full force. March should be special. See you then. Adios.