Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Once more I bring you some of my absolute all-time favourite living critters – Dwarf Chameleons! And while previously I showed them off in paintings, this time I treat you to some photography. I include here a couple of photos of my own, as well as two excellent photos by my friend Ruan Stander. These are of the Transvaal Dwarf Chameleon, Bradypodion transvaalense.

These were actually the very first dwarf chameleons I've ever seen in their natural habitat (I had seen some that were kept in reptile collections). It was on an outing to the Hanglip Forest near the town of Louis Trichardt/Makhado, on Saturday the 20th of February. We were seeking reptiles in the forest and adjoining grassland. We didn't find any during the daytime, but with chameleons the likelihood of sightings increase at night, because the chameleons then sleep on the tips of twigs or on vines where they turn a pale colour that shows up clearly by torchlight. But they're still very small so it's by no means easy to find them. Still, Ruan felt very confident that we would in fact get them. Well, he was the expert so I trusted him!

So we set out into the forest after dark, Ruan with a head torch and I with one in hand. We scanned the shrubs, trees and vines on both sides of the path as we walked. And Ruan soon spotted one! It was 6:45 the evening. I was over the moon, it being the very first dwarf chameleon I've ever seen in the wild. It was a small youngster, perhaps only 10 cm/4" or so in total length. It sat right at the tip of a twig, at the side of our path, at about shoulder height. You can see it in Ruan's first photo, the one that is rather plain brownish with the tightly curled tail. That is just how we found it. We took our photos and left it alone. Well, that already made the trip worth my while, but we strolled further, thinking we might find a few others.

Ruan, as I know, has an ability to spot tiny lizards, snakes and frogs in the most densely-vegetated situations at amazing distances. I didn't have much confidence in my own abilities, but used my torch to scan the tree twigs and branches, tangles of vines, and undergrowth that was not too far away, where I thought I might have a chance of seeing one. There were lots of luxurious sage plants, Plectranthus, in the forest understory. I told Ruan I doubted the chameleons would be sleeping in them, since their big leaves might make it difficult to walk around on their stems. Well not long after I said that, I happened to be scanning over those very same sage plants and thought I saw something brownish. I went closer and wouldn't you believe it, there sat another dwarf chameleon! In the midst of those luxurious leaves, pressed tight to the main stem of the plant, only a couple of feet from the ground. That was just after eight. It was an adult male, though still very small. Ruan could tell it was male by some swellings it had by the base of its tail. We bothered it a bit, taking it on our hands and posing it on twigs so Ruan and I could get some good shots. The photo here with it perched on Ruan's finger was taken by me. You can see it has a light-and-dark pattern, but no very bright colours. The males can actually take on extremely bold and bright colour patterns, when they display aggressively to each other to establish territory or contest for females. They can then have broad black lines and vivid white to orange patches along their sides. But when alone in the forest they keep themselves camouflaged.

Actually we made them change colour a bit. Ruan likes them to be light in colour; his camera picks up the colours better that way. To make them turn light on one side, he shines his flashlight at them from the opposite side for a while. Then he quickly takes his photos while they still retain the light coloration.

We perched our little male on a vine, noting exactly where we left it, and then set off to see what else we might find. I was feeling extremely proud for actually having spotted a chameleon myself!

And wouldn't you believe it, just before twenty to nine I spotted yet another one! Again it was perched in the undergrowth, just over a foot off the ground, in a densely leafy and prickly Solanum-bush. This one was more boldly patterned, and the largest yet, perhaps as much as 20 cm/8" in total length. And it turned out to be a female! Again we disturbed the poor thing, taking it on our hands and posing it on twigs. Here you can see a photo of mine, with it on Ruan's thumb, and one of Ruan's where it sits on a twig. There you can see the beginnings of the bold colour pattern, with dark blotches and an orange panel on its side. I never expected a non-displaying female to be so bold. Ruan also told me that the adult females are larger than the males. Still, the most striking colour patterns are to be seen in the displaying males. After taking our photos, we returned the female to her Solanum bushes.

We strolled through the forest a bit more, but saw no further dwarf chameleons. Still, I was chuffed indeed with these sightings, I couldn't have wished for any better! On the way back we checked on the female, but she had moved from the place where we put her down and we couldn't find her again. But we did find the male just on the vine where we'd left it. We put it back on the sage plants where we'd first found it.

It was amazing to me to actually see these exquisite little things up close, to touch them and to be able to inspect them. I loved the little ridges on top of their heads, their casques (the pointy protrusion at the back of their skulls), their little gular crests, and the texture of their skins. The skin coloration and texture was very similar to the mosses and lichens on the tree bark. They would be fantastically well-camouflaged in the forest in the daytime. But now that I've seen these, I'm sure I will be seeing more.

This article was mainly to tell you about the adventure of my first-ever dwarf chameleon sightings. But to learn more about them, please read these entries on Flap-necked, Knysna Dwarf and Natal Midland Dwarf chameleons. As for the Transvaal Dwarf Chameleon, it is fairly similar to the others, just occurring more northerly, in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces of South Africa, and also in our small neighbour country of Swaziland. This makes it the most northward-occurring of all the dwarf chameleons. It lives in patches of forest amidst mountains, and because many of these patches have for long been quite isolated from others, it is quite possible that the chameleons in some of them have evolved and diverged to form new species. Because chameleons can change their colours so easily, colour pattern is not a very useful way of distinguishing species, so scientists trying to classify them look at various morphological features (body proportions, skull shape, crests and ridges, scale and tubercle arrangements) to try to separate species and forms. These days, a potent tool is genetic analysis. You can take a small sample such as the tip of the tail and from that back in the lab 'read' the DNA, looking for similarities and differences between other individuals and populations. Many of Limpopo's dwarf chameleons still need to be analysed that way, and Ruan hopes to be doing his part to help sort them out.

Willem

15.03.21 Front Page

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