Colours of Wildlife: Back to the Leolo Mountains
Created | Updated May 7, 2023
Back to the Leolo Mountains
All these photos were taken during a trip I had with Ruan and Bafokeng Stander, to the Leolo Mountains. There you see a photo of the three of us, armed against the cold morning mountain air! Ruan took the photo.
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Get over yourself. |
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Dwarf Gecko |
Ruan also took the close-up reptile photos of the Dragon Lizard, Smaug warreni; the Black-spotted Dwarf Gecko, Lygodactylus nigropunctatus; the Transvaal Gecko, Pachydactylus affinis; the Spotted Rock Snake, Alopecion guttatum, and the Sekhukhune Flat Lizard, Platysaurus orientalis. The other photos are mine.
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These are all rock-living reptiles. Up in the mountains, they experience extremes of weather: scorching heat in summer, freezing cold at night in spring, autumn and winter; alternating heavy rains and dry periods. All of these make use of cracks in the rocks. Deep inside these, conditions are much milder and less extreme. The flat lizards are 'squashable' and can retreat deep into even very narrow cracks. As you can see here, this male is not happy at being caught!
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This is like adding injury to insult after making Ruan work so hard to snag it.
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It should actually worry about the rock snake more. This snake lives in the same cracks and crevices, and eats its lizard neighbours! It's totally harmless to humans (I think even less than that flat lizard - it made no attempt to bite us).
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There's also a friendly couple of locusts. These look like nymphs, since they don't have fully developed wings. Their bright colours and lazy behaviour indicate that they're poisonous.
There's a photo of a golden Everlasting, a Helichrysum-species. These hardy daisies are abundant in the high mountains, being extremely cold-resistant. Their name comes from their flowerheads that are very long-lasting; they can dry out without losing their colour and shape.
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I show some handsome red leaves on a shrubby tree ... not sure if these bright colours are older autumn leaves or fresh new ones. I think it is a species of thorn pear, Scolopia.
Then there are some landscape shots, showing the hill right next to our camp, Ruan exploring the summit and climbing around some huge rocks, and a view over the Leolo range, towards the Strydpoort Mountains.
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