Exciting Captures on Mariepskop
When most people think of South Africa,
they think lions, rhinos, elephants and other charismatic mega fauna. This past week during the Mariepskop mountain
phase, however, the volunteers got to focus on the smaller creatures as
well. And what a successful week it was! Not only did we catch small mammals such as Brants climbing
mice, Four-striped grass mice, and one Woodland mouse but we also had an
extremely high success rate of amphibian captures. In only two afternoons of active frogging we
caught 9 individuals of 3 different species.
We were all very happy to have caught the Clicking stream frog, Strongylopusgrayii, and the Common river
frog, Amietiaangolensis, however the
most exciting news was the capture of two Natal cascade frogs, Hadromophrynenatalensis. Endemic to a small part of South Africa it
also has a small habitat range, only able to survive in clear, cold, swiftly
flowing, densely vegetated streams. And
though not Red Listed as endangered yet, the Natal cascade frog numbers are
rapidly dropping due to introduced trout as well as habitat destruction. All in all, it’s great news to know
Mariepskop is harboring some rare and beautiful species.
Kaggie Orrick,
Mountain Phase Manager
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