I've only managed to photograph and identify fourteen species of lichen on the estate so far but, with one-thousand-seven-hundred species of lichen so far described for South Africa and an estimated thousand more, these strange organisms are another world all to themselves! Check back at my posts from Jolly Season 2018; May 2019; January 2020; and January 2021 to learn more about some of the remarkable lichens found here on the estate.
This is a Grassveld Sheepsdaisy or Geelblombos, Phymaspermum acerosum (which means: Swollen seeds, needle-like leaves). I mentioned in my last blog that these and the Wilms' Paperflower (see previous blog) were very dominant during autumn this year. The Sheepsdaisies are bright yellow when in bloom and there were fields of them during autumn this year. They have all now gone brown as the flowers die and the seeds develop but there have been a few early mornings where they have been white like the one above from the frost, making them quite beautiful again.
This bush also makes a fine garden subject. Just one individual at the rear of the bed, against the wall, will make a huge difference in autumn when all else is beginning to fade. I do remember a few years back when Liz Steyn, from Finsbury House (unit 23), sprinkled the dry seeds of the Sheepsdaisy on a bare patch of hard ground that had been thrown over a ditch containing building rubble and the following season it was covered in them, showing how readily the seeds germinate.
I've had quite a time recently with spiders. This chap, a Long-jawed Ground spider, Austrachelas bergii, belongs to a genus comprising nineteen rather rare species that are endemic to South Africa and of which there are very few photographs available (making this photo quite a prize according to the Spider group of Southern Africa). It is a medium sized spider that is free-living (does not use a web to catch prey), running around on the ground, during the day, in search of its preferred prey, ants. Once it has achieved its quota of prey it will retreat to it's nest, a woven, silken bag hidden among the stones, to rest overnight.
The spider belongs to the Gallieniellidae, a small family of mostly ant-eating spiders that was thought to be endemic to Madagascar but has since been found in Southern and Eastern Africa and in Australasia. All ants are protected by the presence of formic acid within their bodies which will make any animal that regularly eats them "specialised predators" who have evolved physiological ways to process the acid during digestion. It would be interesting to see the interaction between this spider and an African Queenless ant (see blogs of "The jolly season 2018; and March 2020) which is huge with a mighty sting! I say this because the massive jaws on this spider seem like overkill for a spider that eats ants unless they catch and kill the African Queenless ant and, unfortunately, because of the rarety of the spider group, there is very little information available for them and their behaviour.
This is another spider that I encountered during the winter but this one was in my house! Besides the colour and the fact that it is hairier, it is a similar size to the above Long-jawed Ground spider, and it has long, black jaws and eight eyes in two rows just like the spider featured above. They both also construct silken sacks into which they retreat when resting. This here is a Sac Spider from the Cheiracanthium genus, probably C. lawrencei, and the two spiders featured in this post were originally classified as belonging to the same family because of these similarities but since the age of genetic research, have been allocated to different families because, genetically, they are quite different.
One very notable difference is the venom that the two spiders carry: The Long-jawed Ground spider has a rather mild venom compared to the Sac spider. The Sac spider, with a more potent venom, is also behaviorally different in that it is very aggressive and it takes the least bit of provocation before it will bite. The Sac spider is definitely responsible for the great majority of reported spider bites in South Africa and so, is one of the four groups of medically important spiders occurring here, although it certainly is the least dangerous of them all.
There were thirty five recorded spider bite cases in South Africa over a recent ten year period and they were represented by all four groups of medically important spiders in South Africa. They are the Button spiders from the Latrodectus genus (four of those thirty-five reported cases), and are the only members with a nerve-attacking venom; the Violin spider from the Loxosceles genus (eleven of those cases); the Six-eyed Crab spiders from the Sicarius genus (two of those cases); and then the Sac spiders which were responsible for eighteen of those reported cases. The latter species all carry a cell-destroying venom that will turn the site of the bite into a necrotic lesion within a few days from which a secondary infection may erupt. Of course, this is the worst case scenario. As with snakes, venom is an expensive process to make and so the biter (be it a spider or a snake) tends to be reluctant to use more than is necessary so, if the victim is not a severe threat to the biter, the biter will inject less venom (sometimes even no venom, resulting in a dry bite) whereas, if the victim is rather an aggressor, the biter will inject a full dose of venom.
The least studied of the above dangerous spiders is the Six-eyed Crab spider, from the Sicarius (which means "assasin' in latin) genus because they dwell in caves in deserts and so do not really come into contact with people and so are less of a worry. The venom is cell-destroying but also thins the blood (like the venom of a Boomslang and Twig Snake) and a small dose killed a rabbit in five hours! Quicker than all the others, suggesting that the Six-eyed Crab Spider, a close relative to the Recluse spider in North America, is possibly the most venomous on the planet! I am lucky enough to have had a chance to photograph these spiders when I found a bunch of them in a cave in the middle of the Namib desert more than twenty years ago (and not to have got bitten!). I will make an effort to try and recover the slides.
What a stunning tree! It's a Brittlewood or a Common Wild Alder, Nuxia congesta, in full bloom while festooned with Old Man's Beard lichens hanging randomly from the branches. This beautiful individual resides on the forest edge, high up above the Steenkamps' southern waterfall, close to our boundary with Emoyeni and the presence of so many lichens in the area is an indicator of clean, unpolluted air.
It is a frost-resistant winter flowering tree that reaches three to five meters in height and is a super garden subject, especially smaller gardens. The abundant inflorescences of small cream flowers are very showy and exude a lovely perfumed scent. As you can see, the tree has a very artistic manner of growth and it is also a fast growing tree that will get you about seventy centimeters per year. If that's not enough, then add the fact that it does not have an invasive root system which makes it suitable to plant near pathways and walls without lifting them later on. This feature also makes it a great candidate for large pots although it also happens to be a sought after bonsai subject!
I was clearing out a bunch of pesky young Black Wattle trees on the hill between Tranquility (unit 15) and Jackpot Cottage (unit 16) when I dislodged and then nearly trod on this remarkable insect. It's a full-grown, twenty centimeters long (maybe thirty with legs outstretched), Giant Stick insect, Bactricia bituberculata, with her pair of tubercles, referred to in the specific name, clearly visible in the inset photo as a pair of horns. I have found a male here before and he was very much slimmer, a bit shorter and his little "horns" were sharp and pointed forward like a Mountain Reedbuck ram. He also had a pair of claspers, like a male Dragonfly, at the end of his abdomen to clasp the female during mating.
Stick insects belong to the primitive order of insects called the Phasmida (Old Greek for phantom / ghost - because they appear to be plants but are actually animals) and they are generally flightless, nocturnal vegetarians. They are primitive insects and so have an incomplete metamorphosis, which means that the life cycle comprises an egg, nymph, then adult (a complete metamorphosis has a life cycle comprising an egg, larva, pupa, then adult). They are gentle giants and certainly amongst the most helpless of insects who, unfortunately for them, are highly prized as food by many predators, particularly birds. But, by spending the day looking just like a stick and feeding at night, these perfectly camouflaged insects are usually only discovered by accident, like the way I found it. And then if they are disturbed, they usually play dead, well, not really. Insects are not intelligent enough to think about these things (apparently) so when they play dead (called thanatosis), they actually incur a cataleptic fit. This is when the victim temporarily seizes up with muscles rigid while losing contact with its environment, making it look even more like a rigid twig. If this does not convince the potential predator the Stick Insect may start to bleed foul-tasting haemolymph from it's joints as a defense. But that's about it for this species, before it becomes dinner. There's a species I know from the Lowveld (which should occur here too) in the Bactrododema genus that has a pair of cryptic wings attached to its thorax (like most insects). It doesn't fly with these wings but if the thanatosis doesn't work, it suddenly flashes these wings, which have big eyes painted on them (like many moths), wide open with a flourish and this usually scares the predator away.
The nymph hatches from its egg, looking just like a miniature adult, and immediately begins feeding, chewing up leaves from trees and bushes. Once it begins to grow, it must shed its skin, a laborious process, and emerge with its new larger skin before it continues to graze. The female on my hand here would have undergone five or six of these processes before she was an adult and was then mated with to reach the egg-laying stage for the final three months of the season.
There is absolutely no parental care involved with Stick Insects. It's as if the female doesn't even know that she is laying eggs when she lays one per night for the three month period. She simple drops an egg randomly as she is munching on a leaf with no further worry about where it lands or anything regarding the future of the offspring. The eggs are also extremely well camouflaged, though, resembling a plant seed to a tee. I found this female at the beginning of June so I'm sure she was in the late stages of her life when we found each other. Once the female has laid all her eggs, she dies.
These insects make very popular pets with more than 300 species being tamed in the past, to as far back as the Han Dynasty in China around 200AD! The most common pet, and laboratory specimens, are the Indian Stick Insect, Carausius morosus, which get to about ten centimeters long and are very fond of lettuce. They are normally kept in a small bird or rodent cage. An odd but very gentle pet indeed!
Anyone who has been here over the winter could not have failed to notice the little purple bushes all over the estate and entrance road, especially in dry, rocky places. It is a Wild Aster, Felicia filifolia, and, although it normally blooms copiously, this season it has been unforgetful! I found this individual up on the Miner's cottage road (you can see the soccer field in the valley far below) and chose it to photograph because of the lovely view but there were much fuller bushes elsewhere on the estate. Felicia = Felix (L) Cheerful, alluding to the attractive splash of colour (or maybe after a German named Felix, I prefer the former); filifolia = (L) fine leaves.
The little mauve daisies, with a yellow center, are so crowded on the bush, that the dark green, needle-like leaves are barely visible and that just creates this splash of colour right through winter. Not to mention the beautiful aroma that accompanies it. Strangely, though, all the literature I can find on them suggest that they flower at spring time but I have always known them to flower in mid-winter here at Finsbury. The flowers also persist for a long time, the whole of June and July for most the bushes here. The tufts of seeds produced after the flowers are also very attractive. Like soft, puffy flower heads.
It will remain a mystery to me why these bushes are not planted in everyone's gardens in this country. The bush is indigenous to both the summer and winter rainfall regions, which means it is supposed to grow wherever you are. It is frost resistant and requires very little care. Rainfall in your region should be enough for them so they don't even need to be watered! They prefer full sun but can still thrive in semi-shade, although they will produce more leaves and less flowers there. The attractive dark green leaves make it handsome even when it is not in flower. It also responds well to pruning, so can be shaped. In fact, I can only find one negative thing relating to this bush and that is that it is poisonous to sheep. So if you don't keep sheep, you should plant some in your garden.
Finsbury has just purchased a teleconverter for my little camera and already I can see an improvement to the photos of distant things like birds (it must have been my constant reference to my camera being bad at bird photography in my posts...). This is a very common bird around the estate and it is sedentary, which means it stays here right throughout the year. No migrating, even locally (to lower altitudes close by) like many of our "sedentary" birds do because our winters can be very cold. It is a male Cape Weaver, Ploceus capensis, and is plain, bright yellow right now. Very soon, as spring arrives, he will get a dark chestnut wash over his face as he enters his breeding phase. The female is much paler with a white belly and dark eyes (very rarely light eyes) often seen together, in groups, with males.
When the breeding season starts, a bunch of males will each build a nest in a colony, usually on the same tree and begin to make a racket to attract females to come and inspect the quality of his nest. This becomes a rather noisy affair and is easy to observe at Coch-Y-Bunddhu (unit 1) in the Flute Cape Willows on the edge of K32. The thing that creates such a commotion is the fact that each male establishes a territory directly around his nest and aggressively defends this with displays and attacking intruders. You can imagine the cacophony!
If he can display handsomely enough, a female may be attracted to his nest where he will dance around singing while she enters the nest and inspects it by pulling at the walls and the floor, testing its strength. If she is not satisfied, she will depart and visit another male to inspect his handiwork. If this happens, the rejected male will often tear the nest down and rebuild, taking about a week. If she approves of the nest, then she will lie down in it, facing forward, looking out the door, before she flies out and invites copulation. Between then and egg-laying, the female will line the nest with fine grasses and her own down feathers while the male adds a tunnel to the entrance. Then she will lay three or so eggs and incubate and then brood the chicks while the male spends his nights in an adjacent non-breeding nest built for the purpose. Once the chicks begin to grow, she will also spend her nights in their non-breeding accommodation next door and before three weeks is up, the chicks are fledged and ready to leave the nest
The birds are catholic in their diet (which means they eat anything!) which includes diverse foodstuffs from crawling insect which are prised from their hiding places like Woodhoepoes do; to flying insects that are "hawked" like flycatchers do; to licking nectar from flowers like sugarbirds do; to plucking seeds from grasses like Queleas do; to fruits picked off trees like Turacos do; to picking seeds off the ground like Canaries do; to catching grasshoppers like Shrikes do; and to picking spiders off their webs like sunbirds do! Wow! Can't go hungry with so many skills.
So I was walking along the edge of K33, the newly repaired dam on the northern Kliprots, when I noticed these pretty patterns an top of the stones and also on sticks in the shallow waters. I photographed it and found out that they are casings constructed by little worms that live in them when at rest. I returned and collected a rock and submerged it in water in an ice-cream container and took it home to study it.
I managed to remove one of the little worms from its casing and magnified it fifty times under my little digital microscope and this is what I saw, a red worm about five millimeters long and half a millimeter or less wide. It's called a "Bloodworm" and it's not actually a worm but the larvae of a Non-biting Midge from the Chironomidae family of flies, closely related to mosquitoes or Biting Midges. They feed on nutrients and micro-organisms on the muddy bottom of waterbodies where there is very little oxygen available and so they contain Haemoglobin, a protein capable of storing oxygen. Haemoglobin is responsible for transporting oxygen in vertebrates and that is why our blood is red.
The following day I found this little pupa floating in the water of my ice-cream container. It measured about eight millimeters long. In a natural situation, the pupa develops within the case and when ready, swims to the surface of the water where it splits longwise and the adult emerges.
And because I kept the lid on the container, the following day I found this tiny adult, about two millimeters long, struggling to stay afloat. I removed it, allowed it to dry out and then managed to photograph it. It looks just like a tiny mosquito but without the biting mouthparts. Also, like mosquitos, I can tell this is a male because he has feathery antennae. Mosquitos males use these antennae, like many moths, to locate phermones released by the female, and then follow them until he finds her. This cannot be the case with Chironomid midges because the males, once emerged from their pupa, gather in swarms, like Mayflies do, and the females find these swarms and barrel into them. The first male that can hang on to her drops with her to the floor where they mate. She then flies off and when her eggs have developed, she drops them one by one into the water where they sink to the bottom and lie there until hatching. The newly hatched larvae float in the water and eat microorganisms and, only after the first moult, do they sink to the bottom, build their case, and become bottom feeders.
Most lakes, dams and streams are home to fifty to a hundred different species of Chironomid, making this family of midges the most abundant primary consumer in these waterbodies. Collectively, they harvest an enormous amount of energy from detritus in water, making them vitally important in aquatic ecosystems. And they occur all over the world. In fact, they are the largest permanent terrestrial species of animal found year-round in the antarctica!
As winter comes to a close, the days are becoming longer, quickly, as we approach springtime! We hope to see you all this spring. Please don't hesitate to ask me if you want me to guide you and your visitors on an amble, walk or hike here on the estate while you are here. You can email me before hand at jimmy@finsbury.co.za, or radio me when you are already here. See you then :)
