Zambian Wildlife and Bletherings therein: Bird

Showing posts with label Bird. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Phrynarachne rugosa (Latreille, 1804)

There are a great many things that can distract me when I am pulling Lantana camara seedlings, saplings and assorted other -ings out of the ground (read more about the horror of Lantana camara everywhere outside of its native range here (wiki link), and if, living outside of South and Central America, you even think of adding it to your garden, I quite unreservedly loathe you).

This very nearly failed to distract me:

Photographed in December 2013 in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia, using Olympus E-420 DSLR, Zuiko 40-150mm lens and 3 KOOD magnifiers.

I'm hoping that you, as I did, initially dismissed it as the source of my prickly troubles - just another berry-filled bird-dropping. Having recognised it as a spider, however, I find the resemblance to a bird dropping much harder to see, and have to wonder whether it was ever as convincing as I thought.

But there we go. This, unless I am tragically mistaken, is a member of the widespread Paleotropical <is that a word?> genus Phrynarachne, or the Bird-Dropping Crab Spider. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I can't seem to find a specific Chewa, or derived Nyanja word for Crab Spider, but a literal translation would be along the lines of Mbalame-Matuvi Nkhanu-Kanguade.

There are a fair number of species in the genus, however, only two described species are known from areas closer to Zambia than Equatorial Guinea. One - Phrynarachne melloleitaoi, is only known from neighbouring Angola, while the second is found from Madagascar, through central Africa and into parts of West Africa.

Which makes our likely candidate today:

Phrynarachne rugosa

(Latreille, 1804)

I will add that the nominate subspecies is only known from West Africa, and therefore this is likely to be Phrynarachne rugosa infernalis, but I shall keep it in minute font, because I don't want to push my luck.

This lovely mbalame-matuvi nkhanu-kanguade (and what do you mean, that's a mouthful?) belongs, with more confidence, to:

- Phrynarachnini

- Stephanopinae

- Thomisidae

- Thomisoidea

- Dionycha

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Stigmatopelia senegalensis (Linneaus, 1766)

(slightly early) Happy World Sparrow Day!

For those who don't know, the 20th of March (which it already is in some places) has been celebrated since 2010 NOT in the same way as other bird-associated days where the bird gets eaten/killed, but to raise awareness and rejuvenate affection for synanthropic bird species around the world, particularly the cosmopolitan (but, N.B., declining, House Sparrow, Passer domesticus).

This is not a house sparrow:

Photographed in the city of Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in January 2014. Olympus E-420, with 70-300mm Zuiko lens.

This is quite a different synanthrope*, the African Laughing Dove, Laughing Turtle Dove, or just Laughing Dove in English, Msekankhunda in Chewa and Rooiborsduifie in Afrikaans... I would try and find out what it's called in Arabic, but my complete failure to comprehend

As with most doves, it feeds primarily on seeds and fruit, but will chow down unsuspecting insects (in particular the winged termite reproductives, or Inswa in Nyanja, that emerge in Zambia's rains seem to tempt all normally herbivorous birds to spice up their diets), and has been seen (not by me) taking nectar from flowers.

In theory, it is a tree-nesting bird, although this particular individual was very much involved with a nest in the support of a poolside umbrella. In Lusaka, where they are eaten, they are very retiring and mostly seen in walled gardens, but in Dubai, they seemed quite comfortable with slow-moving humans mere feet away from them, and walk along the streets amongst the much more widespread rock doves (the wild ancestor of the now cosmopolitan feral pigeon, Columba livia).

Its binomial is a bit mixed up: Carl Linneaus, the Swiss Big-Daddy of naming everything, called it Columba senegalensis in 1766, but in the 1800s, Sundevall (Another Carl, but this time Swedish), put it in Stigmatopelia (and, as is relevant, a similar species in Spilopelia). A while later, they were put into Streptopelia (in the 1990s, I think) by Sibley and Munroe (Sibley is perhaps most famous for one of the earliest truly ambitious attempts at a molecular phylogeny of birds - that is to say, looking at selectively neutral changes in long-chain molecules of the cell. Much of Sibley (and Alquist)'s phylogeny is now disputed, particularly since the rather more intuitive and somewhat more rigorous study by Hackett and friends in 2008). However, since then, it's been pointed out that this and another species aren't all that closely related to the rest of Streptopelia, and so the genus that Sundevall originally assigned them to has been resurrected.

The problem is that these two closely related species were given a genus each by Mr. Sundevall (typical ornithologist, oversplitting). Traditionally, the one used earlier would be used for both (Stigmatopelia), but he used them both in the same paper and, by all accounts, there weren't all that many words between them. Spilopelia was used more widely between Sundevall and Sibley, and so - excusing their sticking with what they're used to by an ICZN nomenclature exception (which yes, is essentially meaningless), these poor doves are currently being torn between two genera.

The IUCN uses Stigmatopelia, though, and have I mentioned that I love the IUCN? So, with ramble over, this is (for me and the IUCN, at least),

Stigmatopelia senegalensis

(Linnaeus, 1766)

- Columbinae

- Columbidae

Friday, 30 August 2013

Burhinus vermiculatus (Cabanis, 1868)

Another vertebrate - and quite a small image:

Burhinus vermiculatus, Chombe, Kafue NP, Central Province, Zambia

Photographed near Chumba, Central Province, Zambia, in October 2011, using an Olympus E-420 with a Zuiko 40-150mm lens

This rather cynical looking bird is the Water Dikkop (or, for purist Anglophones, Water Thick-Knee),

Burhinus vermiculatus

(Cabanis, 1868)

It seems worthy of note that the Afrikaans Dikkop does not mean thick-knee, but thick-head. Something else that's been lost in translation.

I'm going into the taxonomy now. I may be some time;

- Burhinidae
- Chionidi
- Charadriiformes

Monday, 29 April 2013

Thelotornis capensis oatesii (Günther, 1881)

For anyone who's taken the time to browse the pictures already up, you'll notice that invertebrates dominate the subject headings - almost as much as they dominate animal diversity...

Today, we're taking a step back to one of my favourite - although taxonomically iffy - groups. Prepare yourselves. Oh, and a word to any herpetophobes - it's only a picture. You'll live.

Eukaryota

Animalia

Eumetazoa (some day soon, I'm going to shock you all and post a picture of a sea sponge. Just not today, evidently).

Bilateralia

Nephrozoa

Deuterostomia

Chordata

Craniata

Vertebrata (told you so)

Gnathostoma

Teleostomi

Osteichthys

Sarcopterygii

Tetrapoda

Reptiliomorpha

Amniota

Reptilia

Romeriida

Diapsida

Sauria (Includes birds and crocodiles)

Lepidosauromorpha

Lepidosauria (Includes Tuatara)

Squamata

Scleroglossa

Serpentes

Alethinophidia

Coenophidia

Colubroidea

Colubridae

Colubrinae

(As always with vertebrate taxonomy, there are three places where uncertainty remains - the higher taxonomy, the lower taxonomy, and the middly bit.

The areas I particularly want to draw to your attention are the Craniata/Vertebrata, in which this phylogeny would consider the hagfish an invertebrate, but the externally very similar lamprey a vertebrate (although in my opinion, a reasonable distinction), the Amniota/Reptilia/Romeriida/Diapsida/Sauria/Lepidosauria sequence, within which the Mammals (and close relatives), the turtles (Anapsids), and the birds-dinosaurs-and-crocodiles (Archosaurs) are split off, in that order. The precise placement of the mammals (inside or outside reptiles) is a fairly minor point, but the details of the bird/snake/turtle split are not. Turtles (which includes the terrestrial lineage of tortoises) are usually split off first, hence the terms "Anapsid" (Turtles and extinct relatives) and "Diapsid" (Snakes, Lizards, Birds, Tuatara, Crocodiles and friends). However, the features used to seperate them thusly are probably derived, as genetic studies indicate that actually, birds-dinosaurs-and-crocodiles (Archosauria) are more closely related to the turtles (Anapsida) than to the other half of the Diapsida (snakes, lizards and friends).

Finally, the Colubroidea and every level beneath it are currently under revision, and likely to continue thusly for some time... because lazy taxonomists of the past just chucked any old snake that wasn't particularly venomous, in there, and so most of them don't belong.

Our species of the day probably does belong, however, and it is:

Thelotornis capensis oatesii

(Günther, 1881)

Thelotornis, the genus to which this rather lovely snake belongs, is native to more-or-less the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa. The species - T. capensis - is predominantly found in non-rainforest areas below the equator, and this subspecies, Thelotornis capensis oatesii, recogniseable by the dull green cap to its head (which is unfortunately not fully visible from this angle, but I assure you, it is there), is centred over south-central Africa. They are known variously as bird, twig or vine snakes, and if you ever see a pair of bulbuls making a fuss, but can't see why, the chances are that one of the sticks near their nest is actually one of these (assuming that you're in sub-Saharan Africa at the time)

It's not a large snake, topping out at under five feet, but, ironically enough for a snake in the taxon previously called "Harmless snakes" (Colubridae), it's quite venomous. Like the related Boomslang, its venom is Haemotoxic, or active on the blood. The specifics of this mean that there's a grace period of around twenty-four hours between envenomation (Getting bitten) and showing any symptoms. When symtoms do show, resulting from the aggregation of blood cells, they aren't pleasant and can potentially be fatal if left untreated.

Before you rush off an start cutting the heads off every well camouflaged snake you see, bear in mind one very important point.

Across Southern Africa, where this snake is common in gardens, you are more likely to be killed by lightning than bitten by a snake.

It may sound like a broken record, but most snakes avoid confrontation, and in almost all cases where people are bitten, the person was attempting to handle or harm the snake at the time.

Also, they're awesome.

Introductory Blether.

Welcome, and stuff.

If you're one of those strange people that don't like seeing pictures of invertebrates or small vertebrates, well done for coming here - although if it was by accident, you may wish to leave. There's lots of text, which may or may not interest you, and no consistent format. Because life's family tree is awesome, there is a nod to this in the organiser, which is a taxonomic "contents" page updated less frequently than it should be.

Also, while most of what you'll see on this blog is Zambian wildlife, occasional posts feature animals from other countries, and sometimes these are not wild. This is noted in the text.

Zambian Wildlife and Bletherings therein

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