Spot the beast

Spot the beast 86

We spotted this beast during our journey through the Mphongolo Loop (S56). In fact, it was found by my wife Mabel and I am still trying to understand how she did it. As they say in this part of the world, she has a “trained eye” and never ceases to surprise me.

This is what she saw and I promise that it was still much further away from us than what the picture shows! She assures me that she is able to see a tail movement or the flicking of an ear! It took me a while to find it!

The picture below may be of help before I reveal it…

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If you still have not managed, that is the spotted beast spotted!

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The young leopard was enjoying its life and we managed to watch it on our own for about an hour before another car joined us. An almost impossible feat in the Kruger National Park.

I think that of all our leopard sightings, I can claim credit for one. It was a male leopard that was lying sunning itself a couple of metres from the car and on my side of the road.

The above sighting was so nice that my next post will be a slide show of the pictures we took. I hope you will enjoy them.

Spot the beast(s) 85

Our favourite drive while in the northern Kruger National Park is the Mphongolo Loop (S56) that goes between Shingwedzi Rest Camp and Babalala Picnic Site It is about 30 km and, as its name indicates, follows the Mphongolo River, a major tributary of the Shingwedzi.

The road passes through various habitats where different wildlife can be found. In some places the river does not have any surface water (although it may still run under the sand) while in others, particularly when the terrain becomes hillier, water accumulates in waterholes that attract good amount of wildlife.

Below is what we found in one of these river bends that I believe was the Ribye waterhole.

A picture of the view:

We stopped the car and watched, enjoying the moment. After a while, we noted that we have missed some other beasts that were also present, apart from the crocodiles…

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The above picture should help…

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However, the following will leave no doubts…

At some stage, while entertained watching the action in the water edge closer to us, a movement caught our eyes in the rocks further away. We saw a flash of pink and realized that the rocks were in fact a pod of hippo. They had been there all the time, lying quietly enjoying the sunshine and too lazy to move to the point that their exposed bodies were dry!

Spot the beast 84

I have not published a “Spot” for a while. I found this one that I found in our farm in Salta, Argentina a while ago and that went “unspotted” until today! Can you see it?

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If its antennae did not give it away, the colour of the inner part of the wings will now!

Spot the beast 83

During our recent trip to Hwange National Park we spotted this beast. Can you see it?

You will agree with me that it was a rather easy find as the following video taken by Mabel shows:

This rather large flap-necked chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) resides in the dining area of the camp. One evening it was perched on the white canvas windbreaker almost as white as the canvas! THe following day it was spotted drinking water from the garden sprinkler! See it in action through another of Mabel´s videos below:

It was a good entertainment to see it almost daily and I hope it goes on living there undisturbed.

Spot the beast 82

Driving around Robins camp in Hwange National Park we spotted this beast, the first one we have found in Zimbabwe. If you looked carefully you may have spotted somewhere in the picture. Below I present you with a close-up where you can see that it is an African Wild cat (Felis lybica).

The following (bad) picture shows some of the characteristic markings of this kind of cat.

I will further ellaborate on this finding in my next post on Hwange National Park.

Spot the beast 81

Winter is not the best season to spot beasts at our farm in Salta, Argentina. Today was, however, an exception and we came across this beast that I would like you to spot and then I will give you more details about it.

To find the beast above is very difficult so I put a close-up to help you seeing it better:

I am quite sure that you have now find it. it is a Rococo toad (Rhinella schneideri) [1] that Mabel unearthed while shifting a pile of sand to build a carport at our farm. Luckily it was alive and unharmed but amazingly flaccid, clearly hibernating.

A cleaner toad for you to see better.
“Side B” of the toad.

This rococo had buried itself at the start of the winter, probably in mid May as the winter started early this year and it will resurface when the warmer temperatures arrive in September/October. We re-buried it as well as we could and marked the site so that we can watch it emerging when the first warm days arrive.

The following short videos give more details of the find and the condition of the toad.

These are the pictures of an active toad found in the back patio of our farmhouse earlier this year that I used to illustrate my earlier post on this animal (see [1]). Apart from its rather impressive size, I find its clear eyes truly amazing.

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[1] See: https://bushsnob.com/2019/03/04/rococo/ for more info.

Spot the beast 80

A rather special “beast” found in the morning. I am sure that you will see it rather easily.

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A delicate white moth that I am sure was not designed by Nature to use its colour to appear invisible on a white wall!

Spot the beast 78

By chance I bumped into this beast yesterday. I wonder if you can identify it.

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It is a very dark immature mantis, as usual looking rather fierce. Below a few more pictures of the beast for you to enjoy.

Spot the beast 76

A different “Spot” provided by my son. The find took place while he was SCUBA diving in Tenerife. See if you can spot it.

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The video clearly shows that it is a sole that lost its nerve and swam away rather fast. A nice sight.

Spot the beast 75

The advent of the rains in our farm in Salta brings, like every year, an explosion of life. Today’s beast is not very common but rather spectacular (if you can find it…). At the bottom I include more pictures and videos of it for you to appreciate its beauty.

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It was an Imperial moth (Eacles imperialis) first described by Drury in 1773, clearly being too obvious to be missed!

This moth is one of the largest and most stunning of the Imperial moths. It is found from Canada to Argentina. Both larvae and adults are highly variable in coloration. They have a wingspan ranging from of 80 to 174 mm, the females being larger than the males.

Their immature instars feed on pines, oaks, maples, sweetgam and sassafras trees. Adults emerge before sunrise and mate after midnight and the females lay eggs singly or in small groups on both sides of leaves. Both sexes do not feed and are short-lived.

Some more pictures and videos below:

I found these moths a couple of years back and observed that they responded in this way to the touch. I filmed them as I found the behaviour interesting. I imagine that this behaviour could be useful the moths to survive while mating and laying eggs?