wynand_uys's Favorites

A scrappy expanse of silky refuges and capture webs littered with body parts of previous victims. When preferred prey is entangled, the female spiders emerge from their 'nests' and overpower it by grabbing its extremities. In this case, a wasp https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319446.
Presumably they inject venom because after a minute or so the prey stops struggling. Then they snip it out of the web and carry it into one of several 'nests' or refuges.
Unwanted prey, often beetles (see https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319435 ) are also killed but sometimes left in the web, uneaten. Ants, in this case, Maranoplus ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9319390 )scavenge around the periphery of the webs, feasting on unwanted beetles or other left-overs.

One of the most wonderful sounds of the Vumba must be the eerie humming of distant fog horns on misty nights. Obviously no fishing port nearby at 1700 m altitude in the mountains, the sounds are the calls of the mysterious Buff-spotted Flufftails in the forests around our house. These birds are often heard but never seen until one day the guy in the photo casually walked into the lounge of our guesthouse and parked himself at our bar. He stayed for quite a while but didn't drink much and he did not become a regular.

First known wild observations and discovery of natural fluorescent in an old world mammal or any mammal outside of North and Central America, images of the Springhare taken in August 2019. Incredible to see it’s orange and pink glow firsthand, especially when it wasn’t expected! Accidental discovery whilst out photographing scorpions under UV light

Shot using a Nikon D850 Handheld with a Nitecore Chameleon C6 ( 365nm ) torch.

For anyone interested in February 2020 a Scientific journal was released by a American research group ( no relation to me ) about this UV trait and science behind it from research in museum & zoo specimens in the US.

There are a few more images, but you might be able to imagine photographing a rather skittish nocturnal creature on foot with a UV torch in one hand and a large DSLR in the other during a unexpected encounter whilst also trying to expose a camera correctly for UV light isn’t the easiest thing to do the split second.

Photographs include: male, female with caterpillar prey, view of rocks under which nest was situated (nest can be seen in the shade), nest with two young, and nestsite on hillside (indicated by blue arrow). Mainly stills from videos.