South African Wildlife

Descriptions and photographs of South Africa’s astounding wildlife

Plants

South Africa is home to over 20,000 indigenous plant species. These are the species we’ve featured here at de Wets Wild:

: Von Wielligh’s baobab in summer

: Highveld Cabbage Trees

: Camel Thorn tree with sociable weaver nest

: Rich floral diversity at the Cape of Good Hope – these white flowers are known as Cape Snow (Syncarpha vestita)

: Giant Carrion Flower (Stapelia gigantea)

: Cape Chestnut flowers

: Silver Cluster-leaf

: Pig’s Ear flower

: Common Tree Ferns

: Large-leaved Rock Fig

: Namaqua Fig

: Sycomore Fig on the banks of the Nwatindlopfu

: Bushveld Gardenia fruit

: Honeybee and honeysuckle

: Kelp

: Beautiful impala lily flowers

: Kudu Lily

: River Lily

: Swazi Lily

: Sunrise over Imfolozi with a Marula in silhouette

: Black Monkey Orange

: Green Monkey Orange

: Mopane leaves are uniquely butterfly- or spoor-shaped

: Ouhout leaves

: Kosi Raphia Palms and Joubert

: Wild Parasol Flower bloom

: Large Namaqua Porkbush

: Sickle Bush flowers

: Common Sugarbush

: Sweet Thorn in Doornhoek Picnic Site

: There’s beautiful specimens of the fever tree at uMkhuze

: Sunrise over the Augrabies landscape shows a lone Quiver Tree

: Sausage Tree Fruit

: Shepherd’s Tree

: Silver Tree

: Umbrella Thorn

: Candy-striped Crinum flowers

: Outeniqua Yellowwoods (Podocarpus falcatus) towering over the road near Nature’s Valley

: Weeping Wattle blooms

: Pincushion

: Botterboom (Tylecodon paniculatus)

Invertebrates

South Africa has a bounty of over 100,000 kinds of insects and more than 3,000 species of arachnids, among a multitude of other invertebrate life. These are the species we’ve featured here at de Wets Wild:

: Garden Acraea on exotic lantana

: Natal Acraea butterfly

: Matabele Ants

: Tailor Ants

: Forest Beauty

: Honey Bee on Cape Honeysuckle

: CMR Blister Beetle

: Flightless Dung Beetle

: Dung beetles

: Tailed Black-eye Butterfly

: African Grass Blue

: Common Blue (Leptotes sp)

: Patrician Blue

: Geranium Bronze butterfly

: Common Bush Brown

: Rainforest Brown butterfly

: Garden Commodore (wet season colouration)

: Gaudy Commodore (dry season form)

: Dusky Copper butterfly

: Ghost Crab in the surf at Cape Vidal

: Natal Rock Crab

: A huge bush cricket (Clonia wahlbergii) that shared our open-air shower at Mapungubwe National Park

: Common Diadem (male)

: Common Dotted Border

: False Dotted Border

: Twin Dotted Border

: Elegant Grasshopper

: Poisonous Koppie Foam Grasshopper

: Leprous Grasshopper nymphs

: Guinea-fowl Butterfly

: Spotted Jokers congregating on rotting fallen fruit in Mpila

: Layman butterfly

: Beautiful African Leopard (Phalanta-butterfly)

: Forest Leopard butterfly

: Green Milkweed Locust

: Drakensberg Malachite

: African Migrant (Butterfly)

: Pill-millipede

: African Monarch butterfly

: Sundowner Moth

: Clouded Mother-of-Pearl Butterfly

: Novice butterfly

: Four-colour Nudibranch (Godiva quadricolor)

: Painted Lady

: Blue Pansy

: Brown Commodore, aka Brown Pansy

: Soldier Pansy

: Yellow Pansy butterfly

: Two-pip Policeman (butterfly)

: Tree Creeper Scorpion

: Common Hottentot Skipper (male)

: Giant land snail

: Golden Orb-web Spider

: Rain Spider, the size of a cake plate!

: Solifuge a.k.a. Sun Spider

: Citrus Swallowtail

: Green-banded Swallowtail butterflies

: A Flying Handkerchief – the male Mocker Swallowtail – seen along the trail in Hilltop Camp

: Small-striped Swallowtail (photo by Joubert)

: Banded Gold Tip

: Common Orange Tip (male)

: Mating Purple Tips

: Small Orange Tip (male)

: Scarlet Tip

: Sulphur Orange Tip

: Boisduval’s Tree Nymph (female)

: Vine-leaf Vagrant

: Velvet Ant female – This flightless wasp mimics an ant whle searching for unsuspecting prey.

: Wanderer butterfly

: Rain Spider Wasp (Tachypompilus ignitus)

: Thread-waisted Wasp closing up the nest-burrow

: African Common White

: African Small White butterfly on Karoo Num-num flowers

: African Wood White

: Ant-heap Whites

: Bontle’s also home to other beauties – this is a Brown-veined White butterfly

: Common Meadow White

: Zebra White butterfly

: Broad-bordered Grass Yellows

Fish

South Africa can boast around 100 species of indigenous freshwater fish, with 2,200 marine species occurring along its coastline. These are the species we’ve featured here at de Wets Wild:

: Sharptooth Catfish (photograph courtesy of Niel de Wet)

: Klipfish

: African Mudhopper

: Convict Surgeonfish in a rock pool at Cape Vidal

: Adult Male Mozambique Tilapia

: Redbreast Tilapia in Nsumo Pan

Amphibians

It is estimated that South Africa is home to at least 110 different kinds of frogs and toads. These are the species we’ve featured here at de Wets Wild: