Category Archives: South African Wildlife

The inhabitants of South Africa’s wild places

Brown Pansy Butterfly

Junonia natalica

The Brown Pansy, or Brown Commodore, is a medium-sized butterfly with a wingspan of around 5cm. It lives in coastal and riverine forests and dense savannas, where it flies low and slow through open areas. They settle often, being attracted to flowers and puddles, slowly opening and closing their wings, but are also restless and easily flushed. Adults fly year round, with numbers peaking in spring and summer. in South Africa, Brown Pansies occur through much of Kwazulu-Natal and into the Lowveld and escarpment of Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

Brown Commodore, aka Brown Pansy

Great Spotted Cuckoo

23 Replies

Clamator glandarius

The Great Spotted Cuckoo is another summer visitor to South Africa, with birds arriving here from the Mediterranean and equatorial Africa in September and staying until April or May. While here they have a rather patchy distribution, with concentrations in the Lowveld and northern Gauteng.

Great Spotted Cuckoos live in grasslands, savannas and open woodlands. They feed mainly on a wide range of invertebrates, especially caterpillars.

Like others of their kind, Great Spotted Cuckoos are brood parasites, with this species targeting crows and starlings for the raising of their chicks. Females lay between 1 and 4 eggs, usually 2, in the host nest, and as many as 23 eggs in a season. The chicks don’t usually kill their adoptive siblings but will peck at them. The chicks leave the nest between 3 and 4 weeks after hatching. They grow to 39cm in length and weigh about 130g.

With a population estimated at at least 3-million, the IUCN considers the Great Spotted Cuckoo to be of least concern.

Great Spotted Cuckoo with a hairy caterpillar it caught

Great Spotted Cuckoo

Weeping Wattle

18 Replies

Peltophorum africanum

The Weeping Wattle gets its intriguing name from spittle bugs, sap-sucking insects, that live in large numbers on its branches and excrete substantial quantities of almost pure water that continuously drip from the tree as if it is crying, especially in spring.

A semi-deciduous and rather untidy tree that can grow up to 15m high, the Weeping Wattle has a wide range of uses, from being fodder for livestock and popular with honey farmers to being used for furniture manufacturing and as an ingredient in traditional medicine.

Weeping Wattles grow in savanna-associations, often in sandy soils, and in South Africa occurs in Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and North West.

Weeping Wattle

Weeping Wattle blooms being eaten by a Gleaming Fruit Chafer beetle

Weeping Wattle blooms

Weeping Wattle tree in bloom in Satara’s camping area

Weeping Wattle

Weeping Wattle blooms

Rhulani, our guide on the Sweni Trail, explaining why a Weeping Wattle can also be called a “toiletpaper bush”

Zebra White Butterfly

11 Replies

Pinacopteryx eriphia

The Zebra White is another butterfly that is distributed over much of South Africa, and is found in pockets of all our provinces. It doesn’t appear to be numerous anywhere though. It inhabits arid scrub and thickets, warmer grasslands and savanna habitats. Adults have a wingspan of between 4 and 5cm and can be seen throughout the year. They usually fly slow and very close to the ground but can accelerate very quickly to escape danger when required.

Zebra White butterfly

Zebra White

Zebra White butterfly

Zebra White Butterfly

Jacobin Cuckoo

16 Replies

Clamator jacobinus

The pied plumage (though some birds are almost entirely black) gave rise to the Jacobin Cuckoo’s name as it is reminiscent of the clothes of Dominican monks, aka Jacobins. It is found in South Africa only during our warmer months, visiting us from the Indian subcontinent and further north in Africa between October and April. While here they’re most common in the northern and central parts of the country, although they are also found in lower densities in parts of the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces. Jacobin Cuckoos inhabit a wide variety of savanna and woodland habitats. They feed mainly on caterpillars which they catch among the greenery. The IUCN considers it to be of least concern.

Being a brood parasite, the female Jacobin Cuckoo will lay her eggs in the nests of other birds, with about 17 host species recorded locally. Of these they mainly target the Cape, Red-eyed and Dark-capped Bulbuls, Sombre Greenbul and Common Fiscal. In a breeding season the pair may lay up to 25 eggs, one per nest, by working together – the male distracts the hosts from their nest while the female then sneaks in to lay the egg, usually without hurting the other eggs already in the nest. The Cuckoo egg then hatches after about two weeks of being incubated by the surrogate parents, and usually does not evict its nest mates like many other cuckoos do, though by claiming most of the food brought back to the nest it may still cause the other chicks to starve. The chick stays in the nest for almost 3 weeks after hatching and leaves its adoptive parents when it is about a month old. Fully grown they weigh about 80g and are around 34cm long.

Jacobin Cuckoo (Black Morph)

Jacobin Cuckoo

Jacobin Cuckoo (dark morph)

Jacobin Cuckoo

Jacobin Cuckoo (dark morph)

Giant African Land Snails

32 Replies

Family Achatinidae

South Africa is home to 27 known species of snail in four genera from the family Achatinidae, also known as the Giant African Land Snails, with different species found in the various provinces. What they have in common is their herbivorous diets, extraordinary sizes and longevity of up to 5 years. The shell of the largest South African species, the Brownlipped Agate (Metachatina kraussi) which inhabits forests and savanna woodland in Kwazulu-Natal, can grow to 16cm in length.

Several kinds of Giant African Land Snails are kept as pets, however this is also the most likely source of introductions outside their natural range which has caused enormous environmental problems in many other parts of the world – in fact, the East African species Achatina fulica is considered to be one of the 100 worst invading species in the world!

Giant African Land Snail

Giant land snail

Giant African Land Snail

Giant African Land Snail (photo by Joubert)

Shell of a Giant African Land Snail

Marilize holding the shell of a Giant African Land Snail

Shell of a Giant Land Snail on the forest floor

Giant African Land Snail

Painted Lady Butterfly

27 Replies

Vanessa cardui

The Painted Lady is the most widespread butterfly in the world, being found on every continent except South America and Antarctica. There isn’t a corner of South Africa where they do not occur and they inhabit every habitat, from desert to forests, including parks and gardens.

Adults have a wingspan of between 4 and 5cm, with females being slightly larger than males. The males are territorial and defend small areas of bare ground as their patch. They can fly rapidly but often only glide close to the ground, flapping their wings only occasionally, and settling often with wings spread out. These butterflies have a habit of swarming and migrating in various parts of their cosmopolitan range, also here in South Africa. Painted Ladies can be seen year round, being most numerous in spring and autumn. The larvae are raised on a wide variety of food plants.

Painted Lady

Painted Lady Butterfly

Painted Lady

Painted Lady Butterfly

Painted lady

Painted Lady Butterfly

Yellow-breasted Apalis

16 Replies

Apalis flavida

The Yellow-breasted Apalis is a bird of forest and mature woodland habitats with a patchy distribution over sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa they occur from the Eastern Cape through Kwazulu-Natal and into Mpumalanga and Limpopo. The IUCN considers the species to be of least concern.

A shy insectivorous bird, the Yellow-breasted Apalis is usually seen in pairs or small family groups, and even as part of mixed-species flocks known as “bird parties” moving through the tree canopy, gleaning invertebrates from leaves and twigs.

During the breeding season, which spans spring and summer, both members of the monogamous pair work to construct the ball-shaped nest (with a side entrance) in a tree or shrub using fine plant material and lichens. Clutches of 2 or 3 eggs are incubated over a two week period, with both parents taking turns on the eggs. The chicks leave the nest before they’re 3 weeks old. Fully grown they weigh only about 8g and measure about 12cm in length.

Yellow-breasted Apalis

Marula

19 Replies

Sclerocarya birrea

One of Africa’s most iconic trees, the Marula is widespread over sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. In South Africa it is found in Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and Northwest. It grows in savanna and woodland.

The Marula is a large tree, growing up to 18m tall, with a wide spreading crown. Its fruit and leaves are popular with a very wide range of animals, from moth larvae and rodents to giraffes and elephants.

Marula fruit are edible, either fresh or made into jam. Fermented it is used to make traditional beer and Marula cream liqueur is exported the world over. The nut is used as food by itself or mixed with vegetables. In traditional medicine various parts of the Marula tree is used to treat allergies, diarrhoea, rheumatism, haemorrhoids , constipation, even gonorrhoea. The wood is good enough to manufacture furniture and floors and strong rope can be made from the inside layer of the bark.

Marula tree

Marula Tree in Pretoriuskop

Marula Tree (photograph by Joubert)

Marula tree

Zebras and marulas outside Satara

Marula tree damaged by a foraging elephant

Marula fruit

Sunrise over Imfolozi with a Marula in silhouette

Marula Tree in the first light of day

Natal Acraea Butterfly

28 Replies

Acraea natalica

The striking Natal Acraea is a medium-sized butterfly with a wingspan of between 5 and 7cm. In South Africa it occurs commonly through all our northern and eastern provinces, where it is found in forest and savanna habitats. Like most others in the genus the Natal Acraea flies slowly and settles often on flowers, its seemingly lackadaisical attitude being a clue to the fact that it is foul tasting and avoided by predators.