Winter Herping In the Western Cape. With a long weekend looming I took another day off and made it an extended long weekend for my trip to Cape Town for some Winter Herping. Arriving on Friday evening to a particular cold Cape Town we made plans for Saturday. I met with a friend Theo Busschau […]
On my previous trip to this area of the Western Cape in February was quite a different experience, in February the weather was hot, dry and relatively quiet on the reptile front with hours spent in the field offering very little rewards. This time around thankfully was a vastly different experience. Earlier in the year I […]
A very smooth-scaled snake with a blunt head that is not distinct from the body. It has minute eyes and a very short, bluntly rounded tail. Colour varies from a pinkish grey to a plain brown. A fossorial species sometimes encountered in termitaria or above ground after rain. Little is known about the natural history […]
Cordylus macropholis – Large Scaled Girdled Lizard is an endemic terrestrial cordylid, preferring the succulent plant Euphorbia caput-medusae and related species as shelter (Mouton et al. 2000). It may also shelter beneath calcrete rocks and in stick-nests of Vlei Rats (Otomys species) (P. le F.N. Mouton pers. obs.) Occurring on the west coast of South Africa, in the Northern […]
Avoiding the horrible, cliché “Spring has Sprung” post, the Vernal Equinox only takes place on the 22nd of September in the Southern Hemisphere, but this isn’t about that. The West Coast is AMAZING; the West Cost National Park is only just over an hour from the hustle of over-priced coffee and the plethora of bagel shops […]