As the seasons begin to change, we are all certainly longing for decent rains to relieve pressure on dam levels, crop yields and feed availability for livestock and game.
However, with the change of temperature and hopefully imminent onset of rain, we can also expect an increase in the presence of certain critters that are not everybody’s cup of tea.
Such critters tend to have either more than four legs such as cicadas, flies, mosquitoes, millipedes or no legs at all…
Yes, snakes are going to be more common as the summer season approaches, as are their other reptilian cousins such as tortoises and chameleons.
Reptiles will begin to emerge from their dormant winter state as temperatures rise. Reptiles do not hibernate as such during the cooler winter months, but enter a state of inactivity called torpor where they rely on internal nutrient stores.
As they begin to surface and become more active, motorists are urged to take extra care on the roads. When safe to do so, try to avoid running over these commuting creatures that may be utilising the same stretch of tarmac.
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Species likely to be encountered are the flap-necked chameleon, leopard tortoise and the less common Speke’s hinged tortoise.
Should it be safe to move tortoises from the road, they must be lifted gently on the underside of the shell, known as the plastron. It is important to know that tortoises have an internal waterstorage reservoir known as the bursa sac.
It is a defence mechanism for them to release this water store should they feel threatened and they will urinate profusely in order to deter predators. This may be to their own detriment later as they are then at the risk of desiccation.
If lifted gently, they should not feel the need to dispel this incredibly precious commodity. However, Donald Strydom, herpetology expert and owner of Kinyonga Reptile Centre shared some great information with the HOEDSPRUIT HERALD, “Please remember that it is illegal to pick both tortoises and chameleons up off the road. So if you are caught in the act by the authorities, it may be an awkward situation trying to explain that you were merely trying to rescue the reptile and not going to take the it home with you.
“Don’t ever move a tortoise too far from where you find them as they will try and get back to their birth region even if its 100s of kilometres away. Be careful of the salmonella bacterial issues with tortoises, this can make you sick if you do not wash your hands after handling a tortoise.”
Did you know that tortoises have extremely high calcium requirements for shell maintenance and therefore practice osteophagy or the eating of bones in order to absorb extra calcium? Tortoises have also been known to eat hyena scat as the faeces of these bone-chewing predators is extremely high in calcium.
In the bush, or roads less travelled, the saying goes that dung beetles have right of way and that piles of dung should be avoided. One pile of elephant dung may have as many as 16, 000 dung beetles in it. These unsung heroes of the bush are exceptionally important ecologically.
By shifting and rolling dung away and then subsequently burying their dung balls, the beetles help to destroy the eggs of internal parasites as well as returning nutrients to the soil and facilitating germination of seeds caught up in the dung that they bury.
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One snake that is often responsible for many bites is the poorly-known Stiletto snake. The small serpent is dark brown to black in colour and lives most of its life underground. However, on warm humid nights after summer rains, they may emerge and are often mistaken for non-venomous species. Styrdom further informed the HERALD, “People often mistake the Stiletto Side Stabbing
Snake for any small shiny black snake species such as; Purple Glossed Snake, Wolf Snake, Blind Snakes and then the Mole Snake. But interestingly the Mole Snake looks very different to the Stiletto Snake, people just expect a Mole Snake to be a small black shiny snake.”
However, the Stiletto snake has a cytotoxic venom which is cell destroying and causes tissue damage.
Strydom went on to offer more information on this commonly mis-identified snake, “Although the bite is very painful and can at times be destructive to the tissue, the venom of these snakes is not usually life threatening to humans. The problem lies with it being handled, Stiletto Snakes are one of the few snakes that cannot be safely held behind the head. They have very long fangs that they will side stab into your finger without having to open their mouths. This trick is designed to envenomate its favourite food of burrowing lizards.
The Stiletto Snake hunts underground and will locate these lizards by smell then push past the lizard in loose soil, stick out one of its enormously long fangs and side stab it into the lizard, killing it. This allows for the snake to envenomate without opening its mouth underground getting a mouth full of sand.”
Should you come across a snake or reptile, Donald and his team are available for snake rescues, “We are out almost every day, sometimes more than ones a day rescuing reptiles.”
