South Africa- Sept. 2013...cobras and other cool critters...
Posted: October 9th, 2013, 11:58 am
So each of the past 3 years I've judged and organized a skateboard contest in Kimberley, South Africa. The previous 2 years I stayed after the event and lurked around the Kalahari region of the Northern Cape. This year, upon some solid advice from the good folks on the South African herp forum, I decided to go to the KwaZulu-Natal region north of Durban for 3-4 days before heading over to Kimberley to run the contest.
After flying LAX-ATL-JNB (Johannesburg) for a solid 25+ hours, I took the short flight to Durban and got in at 10pm. Got my rental car and stayed close to the airport while trying to adjust to driving on the left side of the road after such a long trip.
Before my trip, like I said earlier, I linked up with a couple of folks on the South African Herp forum and one of them was keen to go and join me on my trip. It was a good idea as exploring and road cruising alone at night in South Africa on unfamiliar roads wasn't really the safest thing to do.
We were going to be staying at the Umkhumbi Lodge http://umkhumbilodge.co.za/ for 3 nights as our base.
On our way from Durban to the lodge we went to the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve. This is the oldest reserve in South Africa and is credited with being the area responsible for repopulating the world with white rhinos. An interesting history and area for sure.
We left the hotel very early...3:30am (so I paid for a solid 4 hours of sleep at the hotel, ha). But the lack of sleep was worth it to get to the gate which opened at 6am.
Starting this mostly with all the birds and mammals seen as herps came later....
Entrance gate at 6am. My sweet Hyundai is on the left...
entrance to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Cape Buffalo with Red-Oxpecker coming in for some grub
Water Buffalo with Red-billed Oxpecker at Hluhluwe-imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Got really close up, good views of elephants for the first time in my life. So amazing.
African Elephant at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
A nest of White-backed Vultures. You can see the juvenile behind them
African White-Backed Vulture (Gyps africanus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Female Impala with another Red-Billed Oxpecker
Female Impala and Red-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Giraffes are abundant and very, very close to the road.
Giraffe at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
The scenery is nice there, here's what most of the habitat looked like. There's a few baboon's running in the top right as well.
Giraffe at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Purple-crested Lourie
Purple-crested Lourie (Tauraco porphyreolophus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Nice to see tons and tons of rhino as well.
White Rhino at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
White Rhino at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
The park's east entrance is just 30 minutes from the lodge, so we got there about 3pm or so.
It should be noted that the owner of the lodge, Anton, is awesome. He's very into herping, has a pretty extensive collection of herps as well as being the go-to guy in all of that area for removal of snakes in peoples houses and property. He does this service for free and has really saved a ton of snakes from being killed.
Prior to us showing up, he found and held onto a few cobras and puff adders in case we struck out while there...so that I would have something to shoot photos of. So while these weren't my finds, they're about as close as I got to actual wild cobras.
The most common snake found at Umkhumbi is the Forest Cobra...
Nick drags out the Forest Cobra for us to shoot photos of
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
A couple of Puff Adders (we found 3 DOR's but no live ones)
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
They also had a Snouted Cobra that they saved from a neighbor's dog. Amazingly, the cobra lost the fight and had 1-2 puncture wounds in it, so it was healing up and we let it stay in the bin.
But they did have an also common to the area Mozambique Spitting Cobra (locally known as M'Fezi).
These guys are pissed off right out of the gate.
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
I wore some glasses to protect from getting sprayed by this guy (with 1 lens so I could still shoot easily). They spit constantly, I was really surprised at how often they just go spraying everything in sight.
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
After that excitement, we went road cruising. The first night was very cold and we actually didn't see any herps at all besides one toad.
But...we did road cruise this Bush Baby after seeing the eye shine
Bushbaby (Galago senegalensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Bushbaby (Galago senegalensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Red Toad was the only thing we cruised that first night.
Red Toad (Schismaderma carens) by jrothdog, on Flickr
The next day, we went to the town of St. Lucia. This area is decent habitat for Gaboon Adders so we did a touristy style boat ride around the estuary and hiked as well, before staying after dark for road cruising that area.
The estuary is loaded up with hippos, nile crocs and all types of birds...
Basking Nile Croc
Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This croc was tagged using a very old method they said. They haven't used these tags in 40+ years down there. Pretty brutal looking and archaic tagging.
Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
African Fish Eagle
African Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) by jrothdog, on Flickr
St. Lucia Hippos by jrothdog, on Flickr
The area was very lush, we hiked for about 3 hours or so without finding any herps...bummer. I swear we probably walked past 10 Gaboon's though, but you would never know because of their camo...
This guy fronted me though while walking
Warthog near St. Lucia South Africa by jrothdog, on Flickr
Zebra near St. Lucia South Africa by jrothdog, on Flickr
Nick was trying to see if there were any pythons down this hole. Good luck with that my man, I'll be up here shooting photos
Nick exploring possible rock python den by jrothdog, on Flickr
The best thing about staying at Umkhumbi Lodge, is that the owner planned out every night of road cruising trying to put us in the best spots to find things. He was on vacation with his family while we were there though so he missed out joining us (which I could tell he was bummed on since he texted every 10 minutes for updates on what we found).
It was much warmer on our 2nd night of road cruising. As usual, there was a period of peak activity for about 1 hour or so. Unfortunately for us it occurred while we were on the busiest road in the area trying to get to another road. So in a span of about 15 minutes, we saw 4-5 snakes and only managed to scoop up 2 to shoot photos of. Drivers in SA are notoriously sketchy, not to mention in busy areas near townships, there's a lot of creepers walking around you just don't know what's going to happen.
First snake of the night was this DOR (hit by the car in front of me, ahhhhh)
Rhombic Night Adder
DOR Rhombic Night Adder (Causus rhombeatus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Guttoral Toad
Guttural Toad (Amietophrynus gutturalis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Eastern Olive Toad
Eastern Olive Toad (Amietophrynus garmani) by jrothdog, on Flickr
I found this Rhombic Egg Eater on our exit off the highway. Small juvenile
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This is a Herald or White-Lipped Snake
Herald Snake (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Herald Snake (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia) by jrothdog, on Flickr
We found this DOR Vine Snake while out road cruising a road near the lodge. These are unlike the Vine Snakes here in the Americas. They have a hemotoxic venom and it's only treated by blood transfusions. Best not to get bit by one of these I'm assuming.
DOR Vine Snake (Thelotornis capensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Along the drive that night we stopped by a large water tank listening to frogs but couldn't find any. Up ahead on the dirt road we saw an outline of an animal we couldn't make out. As we drove further we realized it was an Eagle Owl that had just snatched up a snake off the road and flew up in a tree above us. Nick was so bummed. I would have loved to see what kind of snake it was, but I'm sure the owl needed it worse than we did.
Dung beetle doing what dung beetles do
Dung Beetle by jrothdog, on Flickr
So we did find some live snakes that night, which was awesome.
The next day we visited a neighbor's farm who has a resident Black Mamba as well as a very large 18ft resident Rock Python.
Along the drive there Nick yelled STOP! and proceeded to jump out of the car before I had actually stopped, bashing himself with the door upon exit...but he managed to tree this large Rock Monitor. I was stoked as I had only found a DOR in previous trips
Rock Monitor (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
At the farm, the only evidence of our targets were their sheds...
Mamba shed
Black Mamba shed by jrothdog, on Flickr
Large Rock Python shed
Lacey with Rock Python shed by jrothdog, on Flickr
They have awesome rides there in SA
Sick South African ride by jrothdog, on Flickr
Bird Eggs found while hiking
Bird eggs found on hike by jrothdog, on Flickr
This is the den the python lives in. Nick tempting fate to see what he can find. Suicide mission...
Nick exploring a Rock Python den by jrothdog, on Flickr
Back at the Lodge we managed to find a Flap Necked Chameleon who likes to hang out sometimes. It's absolutely insane how hard it is to find these during the daylight. Even knowing which tree/bush they're in, you can't see them right in front of you.
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Rock Monitor lives in the awning above the patio and doesn't come out much.
Rock Monitor (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Like I mentioned earlier, the owner has a pretty extensive collection of snakes. Somewhere around 50-60 it seems. Some are just there for rehab (like the Snouted Cobra getting well from the dog bite) and some are just straight pets. He also has done some interesting research on releasing snakes outside of where you find them. He radio tagged a few species of cobras, black mambas and a few others and released them far away from where they were found (some from Durban, 3 hours away). Unlike rattlesnakes here which are known to really suffer from release barely 1 mile from their range, these SA species survived totally fine. They checked up on their releases for up to a year and while some met predatory deaths from birds, others kept on fine.
Here's his garage and some setups. Those plywood areas in the back are where his Gaboon Adders and Rhino Vipers are kept.
Anton's snake collection by jrothdog, on Flickr
Gaboon's in their pen...he has 5 total I believe
Gaboon Adders (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Rhino Viper
Rhino Viper (Bitis nasicornis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
We took one of the Gaboon's out for a spin to shoot photos of. You can clearly see how impossible it is to find them when they're not on the move or on the road. The matching of the colors with the leaves (the lodge is in their habitat) is perfect.
Gaboon Adder (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Gaboon Adder (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
So we didn't get to see a wild one, but I was stoked to see them up close.
Sunset from the deck of the lodge
Umkhumbi Sunset by jrothdog, on Flickr
Our last night of road cruising was decent as well. We went pretty far, a solid 6 total hours of cruising and I was beat. I had to relinquish driving for the last 1 hour due to sleepy eyes, which pretty much never happens to me.
Leaving the lodge we saw this hand sized moth
Moth ssp? by jrothdog, on Flickr
We found 2 DOR juvie Puff Adders but they were mangled so I didn't bother shooting them.
We found another Herald snake as well and released it without photos since I got some already.
Another Rhombic Egg Eater also...
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Flap Necked Chameleon was a little far into the bushes for me to get a good photo
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Here's the one at the lodge at night though up close
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This was the first non-DOR Brown House Snake we found. They really remind me of Rosy Boas...
Brown House Snake (Lamprophis fuliginosus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Brown House Snake (Lamprophis fuliginosus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This frog hangs out in the bathrooms and actually inside the toilets at the lodge. Weird.
Greater Leaf-folding Frog (Afrixalus fornasinii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
My parting gift the morning I was leaving to go back to Durban to fly out and do the skate contest literally fell out of the sky. I was taking a shower and this Velvet Gecko fell onto my head and into the shower. I quickly picked it up, got dressed with 1 hand and went out to shoot photos of it. They're large geckos, similar to Turnip Tailed ones you find in Central America.
Wahlberg's Velvet Gecko (Homopholis walbergii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Wahlberg's Velvet Gecko (Homopholis walbergii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
So I was able to pack in a lot of stuff in the 3 full days I was there. Not a lot of sleep as was expected. We've got 2 more years on the contract for the contest, so if all goes as planned again I'm going to go back here and try for some of the things I missed this time.
After flying LAX-ATL-JNB (Johannesburg) for a solid 25+ hours, I took the short flight to Durban and got in at 10pm. Got my rental car and stayed close to the airport while trying to adjust to driving on the left side of the road after such a long trip.
Before my trip, like I said earlier, I linked up with a couple of folks on the South African Herp forum and one of them was keen to go and join me on my trip. It was a good idea as exploring and road cruising alone at night in South Africa on unfamiliar roads wasn't really the safest thing to do.
We were going to be staying at the Umkhumbi Lodge http://umkhumbilodge.co.za/ for 3 nights as our base.
On our way from Durban to the lodge we went to the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve. This is the oldest reserve in South Africa and is credited with being the area responsible for repopulating the world with white rhinos. An interesting history and area for sure.
We left the hotel very early...3:30am (so I paid for a solid 4 hours of sleep at the hotel, ha). But the lack of sleep was worth it to get to the gate which opened at 6am.
Starting this mostly with all the birds and mammals seen as herps came later....
Entrance gate at 6am. My sweet Hyundai is on the left...
entrance to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Cape Buffalo with Red-Oxpecker coming in for some grub
Water Buffalo with Red-billed Oxpecker at Hluhluwe-imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Got really close up, good views of elephants for the first time in my life. So amazing.
African Elephant at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
A nest of White-backed Vultures. You can see the juvenile behind them
African White-Backed Vulture (Gyps africanus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Female Impala with another Red-Billed Oxpecker
Female Impala and Red-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorhynchus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Giraffes are abundant and very, very close to the road.
Giraffe at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
The scenery is nice there, here's what most of the habitat looked like. There's a few baboon's running in the top right as well.
Giraffe at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
Purple-crested Lourie
Purple-crested Lourie (Tauraco porphyreolophus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Nice to see tons and tons of rhino as well.
White Rhino at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
White Rhino at Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Reserve by jrothdog, on Flickr
The park's east entrance is just 30 minutes from the lodge, so we got there about 3pm or so.
It should be noted that the owner of the lodge, Anton, is awesome. He's very into herping, has a pretty extensive collection of herps as well as being the go-to guy in all of that area for removal of snakes in peoples houses and property. He does this service for free and has really saved a ton of snakes from being killed.
Prior to us showing up, he found and held onto a few cobras and puff adders in case we struck out while there...so that I would have something to shoot photos of. So while these weren't my finds, they're about as close as I got to actual wild cobras.
The most common snake found at Umkhumbi is the Forest Cobra...
Nick drags out the Forest Cobra for us to shoot photos of
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) by jrothdog, on Flickr
A couple of Puff Adders (we found 3 DOR's but no live ones)
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) by jrothdog, on Flickr
They also had a Snouted Cobra that they saved from a neighbor's dog. Amazingly, the cobra lost the fight and had 1-2 puncture wounds in it, so it was healing up and we let it stay in the bin.
But they did have an also common to the area Mozambique Spitting Cobra (locally known as M'Fezi).
These guys are pissed off right out of the gate.
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
I wore some glasses to protect from getting sprayed by this guy (with 1 lens so I could still shoot easily). They spit constantly, I was really surprised at how often they just go spraying everything in sight.
Mozambique Spitting Cobra (Naja mossambica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
After that excitement, we went road cruising. The first night was very cold and we actually didn't see any herps at all besides one toad.
But...we did road cruise this Bush Baby after seeing the eye shine
Bushbaby (Galago senegalensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Bushbaby (Galago senegalensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Red Toad was the only thing we cruised that first night.
Red Toad (Schismaderma carens) by jrothdog, on Flickr
The next day, we went to the town of St. Lucia. This area is decent habitat for Gaboon Adders so we did a touristy style boat ride around the estuary and hiked as well, before staying after dark for road cruising that area.
The estuary is loaded up with hippos, nile crocs and all types of birds...
Basking Nile Croc
Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This croc was tagged using a very old method they said. They haven't used these tags in 40+ years down there. Pretty brutal looking and archaic tagging.
Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
African Fish Eagle
African Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) by jrothdog, on Flickr
St. Lucia Hippos by jrothdog, on Flickr
The area was very lush, we hiked for about 3 hours or so without finding any herps...bummer. I swear we probably walked past 10 Gaboon's though, but you would never know because of their camo...
This guy fronted me though while walking
Warthog near St. Lucia South Africa by jrothdog, on Flickr
Zebra near St. Lucia South Africa by jrothdog, on Flickr
Nick was trying to see if there were any pythons down this hole. Good luck with that my man, I'll be up here shooting photos
Nick exploring possible rock python den by jrothdog, on Flickr
The best thing about staying at Umkhumbi Lodge, is that the owner planned out every night of road cruising trying to put us in the best spots to find things. He was on vacation with his family while we were there though so he missed out joining us (which I could tell he was bummed on since he texted every 10 minutes for updates on what we found).
It was much warmer on our 2nd night of road cruising. As usual, there was a period of peak activity for about 1 hour or so. Unfortunately for us it occurred while we were on the busiest road in the area trying to get to another road. So in a span of about 15 minutes, we saw 4-5 snakes and only managed to scoop up 2 to shoot photos of. Drivers in SA are notoriously sketchy, not to mention in busy areas near townships, there's a lot of creepers walking around you just don't know what's going to happen.
First snake of the night was this DOR (hit by the car in front of me, ahhhhh)
Rhombic Night Adder
DOR Rhombic Night Adder (Causus rhombeatus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Guttoral Toad
Guttural Toad (Amietophrynus gutturalis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Eastern Olive Toad
Eastern Olive Toad (Amietophrynus garmani) by jrothdog, on Flickr
I found this Rhombic Egg Eater on our exit off the highway. Small juvenile
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This is a Herald or White-Lipped Snake
Herald Snake (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Herald Snake (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia) by jrothdog, on Flickr
We found this DOR Vine Snake while out road cruising a road near the lodge. These are unlike the Vine Snakes here in the Americas. They have a hemotoxic venom and it's only treated by blood transfusions. Best not to get bit by one of these I'm assuming.
DOR Vine Snake (Thelotornis capensis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Along the drive that night we stopped by a large water tank listening to frogs but couldn't find any. Up ahead on the dirt road we saw an outline of an animal we couldn't make out. As we drove further we realized it was an Eagle Owl that had just snatched up a snake off the road and flew up in a tree above us. Nick was so bummed. I would have loved to see what kind of snake it was, but I'm sure the owl needed it worse than we did.
Dung beetle doing what dung beetles do
Dung Beetle by jrothdog, on Flickr
So we did find some live snakes that night, which was awesome.
The next day we visited a neighbor's farm who has a resident Black Mamba as well as a very large 18ft resident Rock Python.
Along the drive there Nick yelled STOP! and proceeded to jump out of the car before I had actually stopped, bashing himself with the door upon exit...but he managed to tree this large Rock Monitor. I was stoked as I had only found a DOR in previous trips
Rock Monitor (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
At the farm, the only evidence of our targets were their sheds...
Mamba shed
Black Mamba shed by jrothdog, on Flickr
Large Rock Python shed
Lacey with Rock Python shed by jrothdog, on Flickr
They have awesome rides there in SA
Sick South African ride by jrothdog, on Flickr
Bird Eggs found while hiking
Bird eggs found on hike by jrothdog, on Flickr
This is the den the python lives in. Nick tempting fate to see what he can find. Suicide mission...
Nick exploring a Rock Python den by jrothdog, on Flickr
Back at the Lodge we managed to find a Flap Necked Chameleon who likes to hang out sometimes. It's absolutely insane how hard it is to find these during the daylight. Even knowing which tree/bush they're in, you can't see them right in front of you.
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Rock Monitor lives in the awning above the patio and doesn't come out much.
Rock Monitor (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Like I mentioned earlier, the owner has a pretty extensive collection of snakes. Somewhere around 50-60 it seems. Some are just there for rehab (like the Snouted Cobra getting well from the dog bite) and some are just straight pets. He also has done some interesting research on releasing snakes outside of where you find them. He radio tagged a few species of cobras, black mambas and a few others and released them far away from where they were found (some from Durban, 3 hours away). Unlike rattlesnakes here which are known to really suffer from release barely 1 mile from their range, these SA species survived totally fine. They checked up on their releases for up to a year and while some met predatory deaths from birds, others kept on fine.
Here's his garage and some setups. Those plywood areas in the back are where his Gaboon Adders and Rhino Vipers are kept.
Anton's snake collection by jrothdog, on Flickr
Gaboon's in their pen...he has 5 total I believe
Gaboon Adders (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Rhino Viper
Rhino Viper (Bitis nasicornis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
We took one of the Gaboon's out for a spin to shoot photos of. You can clearly see how impossible it is to find them when they're not on the move or on the road. The matching of the colors with the leaves (the lodge is in their habitat) is perfect.
Gaboon Adder (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Gaboon Adder (Bitis gabonica) by jrothdog, on Flickr
So we didn't get to see a wild one, but I was stoked to see them up close.
Sunset from the deck of the lodge
Umkhumbi Sunset by jrothdog, on Flickr
Our last night of road cruising was decent as well. We went pretty far, a solid 6 total hours of cruising and I was beat. I had to relinquish driving for the last 1 hour due to sleepy eyes, which pretty much never happens to me.
Leaving the lodge we saw this hand sized moth
Moth ssp? by jrothdog, on Flickr
We found 2 DOR juvie Puff Adders but they were mangled so I didn't bother shooting them.
We found another Herald snake as well and released it without photos since I got some already.
Another Rhombic Egg Eater also...
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Rhombic Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This Flap Necked Chameleon was a little far into the bushes for me to get a good photo
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Here's the one at the lodge at night though up close
Flap-necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This was the first non-DOR Brown House Snake we found. They really remind me of Rosy Boas...
Brown House Snake (Lamprophis fuliginosus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Brown House Snake (Lamprophis fuliginosus) by jrothdog, on Flickr
This frog hangs out in the bathrooms and actually inside the toilets at the lodge. Weird.
Greater Leaf-folding Frog (Afrixalus fornasinii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
My parting gift the morning I was leaving to go back to Durban to fly out and do the skate contest literally fell out of the sky. I was taking a shower and this Velvet Gecko fell onto my head and into the shower. I quickly picked it up, got dressed with 1 hand and went out to shoot photos of it. They're large geckos, similar to Turnip Tailed ones you find in Central America.
Wahlberg's Velvet Gecko (Homopholis walbergii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
Wahlberg's Velvet Gecko (Homopholis walbergii) by jrothdog, on Flickr
So I was able to pack in a lot of stuff in the 3 full days I was there. Not a lot of sleep as was expected. We've got 2 more years on the contract for the contest, so if all goes as planned again I'm going to go back here and try for some of the things I missed this time.