Category: reptiles

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 29, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today’s bird photos (and one of a reptile) come from reader Jan Malek, and were taken in New Jersey. Jan’s captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

At the beginning of this June, I visited the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (that’s quite a mouthful; it would be easier to just say “Brigantine.” Bombastic names are a symptom of societal decline) in southern NJ.

Marsh wrens (Cistothorus palustris) were nesting in the reed thicket. The male builds 3 to 12 nests and the female chooses one; the others help determine the territory or just serve as a testament to the male’s fitness. Another hypothesis is that they work as decoys to prevent predation. Thanks to flexible hip joints, unlike other birds, wrens can strike an impossible pose while clinging to cattail reeds:

A black skimmer (Rynchops niger) made its characteristic low-level fishing sweeps over the channel just after sunrise—a quite late work shift for these crepuscular birds. I was always puzzled by how these birds manage to fly with a good part of their lower mandible submerged in water. It would appear that such drag would severely disrupt or even stall a bird. Any human-made aircraft, when attempting a water landing from a gliding flight, is at severe risk of a violent stall when any part comes into contact with the water. Besides our black skimmer, there are only two other closely related species in the Rynchops genus, attesting to how rare this useful adaptation is:

Looking closer, it turns out the skimmer’s mandible is not like any other bird’s. Its edges are almost fused together to create a knife-edge structure, so when the bird lowers its lower mandible (which is longer than the upper maxilla) into the water, the hydrodynamic drag forces are three orders of magnitude smaller than the lift force the bird creates. The bird maximizes its lift by almost touching the water, using the ground effect, which, to my limited knowledge of physics, compresses a cushion of air and drastically reduces drag beneath the wings, giving the bird some energy recovery from what was spent to remain aloft. The bill is shaped in such a way that dragging it in the water does not create a spray that would hit the bird and disrupt its flight; rather, the water is pushed aside, like waves from a highly efficient racing speedboat:

But what happens when the skimmer catches prey, which can be a sizable fish? It would seem such an obstacle would ruin all the streamlined beak adaptations and stall the bird. But no: the moment the skimmer senses prey, its beak snaps shut and the bird automatically relaxes its neck muscles, all in milliseconds, and the head smoothly pivots down, absorbing the sudden drag increase:

This time the skimmer has missed—no prey:

These adaptations are so unique that I’d risk predicting that biomechanics and closely imitating living organisms’ adaptations in man-made objects will be the next wave of inventions after the AI revolution. For better and worse, imagine microscopic synthetic amoebas in the bloodstream targeting and destroying cancer cells, or robotic dragonflies carrying ultra-small-caliber munitions that seek humans on the battlefield:

By my count, about 6 pairs of ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) nest close to the observation road, their density determined by artificial nesting sites. Each site has a main nest platform and a separate perch where one of the birds can get a rest from chick-rearing duties:

Terns (probably Forster’s terns, Sterna forsteri) made their fishing runs about two hours after sunrise. Here, “fishing” is understood broadly, as this bird caught a marine worm. It was probably a polychaete worm (class Polychaeta), which swarm to the surface during their breeding season. I wonder how the tern managed to swallow this catch:

Fish caught in the shallows attracted the attention of a group of snowy egrets (Egretta thula):

Elsewhere, a mixed congregation of herons loitered in the water. Great egrets (Ardea alba), great blue herons (Ardea herodias), and snowies should be tending their chicks in a heronry at this time, so perhaps these were the societal rejects, unable to find a nest:

A shorebird stopped in the marsh, a bit late in its travel toward the Arctic. Based on the bill shape, I’m 55% certain it is a Greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca):

With the sun higher in the sky, males of the common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) started singing. I don’t get why they didn’t call it a “Black-masked warbler”:

To conclude this small series, here is something for the herpers: a Northern diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin).was crossing the road and curled up in a defensive posture before my car It took a while for the turtle to relax and go on its way:

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 26, 2026 • 8:45 am

We are in dire need of wildlife photos, so if you have some good ones, please send them in.

Today we have the sixth and last installment of Ephraim Heller’s photos from his recent trip to Namibia. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This is the last installment in my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. Today’s photos were taken inland, at the Ongava/Etosha region (where I photographed rhinos for last week’s installment) and at Nkasa Rupara National Park in the Caprivi Strip.

Most of the animals in this post are well known to readers, but the history of the Caprivi Strip is worth a digression on 19th century colonial competition in Africa. Here is a map (courtesy of WorldAtlas) of present-day Namibia. The Caprivi Strip is the odd extension in the northeast corner of the country that juts out to contact Angola, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is 30 km wide and 450 km long:

Germany had established the colony of German South West Africa (modern Namibia) in 1884. Germany also had the colony of German East Africa (Tanganyika, the mainland portion of modern-day Tanzania). German Chancellor Leo von Caprivi wanted to establish a trade corridor between the two German colonies on the west and east coasts of Africa, but there was one problem: the British held colonies in between. He came up with the idea that if he could extend German South West Africa’s eastern border to the Zambezi River, there would be a navigable waterway linking the two German colonies.

This ambition led to negotiations with Britain and to the signing of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty in 1890. Britain transferred the Caprivi strip and ceded the North Sea island of Heligoland to Germany. In return, Germany recognized British authority over the Zanzibar islands (now also part of Tanzania) off of Tanganyika.

All of Chancellor Caprivi’s scheming came to naught, however, because the Germans were not aware of a small obstacle to navigation in the Zambezi River known today as Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world (photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons):

The cunning British, on the other hand, were well aware of the existence of Victoria Falls (David Livingstone having named them in 1855). Perfidious Albion, indeed.  As usual during the Scramble for Africa, the indigenous people were not a consideration in this deal.

Now, on to the animals. I’ll skip descriptions as most species will be familiar to readers:

Wahlberg’s striped skink (Trachylepis wahlbergii) peeking out of the skull of an African buffalo (Syncerus caffer):

Lion (Panthera leo) at sunset:

Black-backed jackals (Lupulella mesomelas) playing at dawn:

Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) coming to drink at the Linyanti River:

Shikra (Tachyspiza badia):

Nile monitor (Varanus niloticus):

Rock hyraxes (Procavia capensis):

More from the sunset photo series. A Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga burchellii):

Red Lechwe (Kobus leche):

Vultures (species unknown):

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 2, 2026 • 8:30 am

Send in your photos if you got ’em, please!

Today’s photos continue the series taken by reader Ephraim Heller in Namibia. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Today I continue my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. I’m organizing the posts by habitat, in the order of our visits, so that you get a sense of the ecosystems. Today’s post features Damaraland, a 48,000 km² region in the northwest of the country.

Damaraland is not a formal administrative region, but a geographic and cultural designation. It is a jumble of granite kopjes, basalt plateaus, flat-topped mountains, broad gravel plains, and eroded canyon systems. Like much of Namibia, it is desert. Here is an aerial view, taken from the window of a small airplane:

Life is sparse here. A handful of ephemeral rivers cross Damaraland, cutting westward from the interior highlands to the Skeleton Coast along the Atlantic Ocean. These rivers flow above ground for only a few days per year following significant inland rainfall, but each bed sits atop an alluvial aquifer that retains water from flood events for months to years. This subsurface water sustains a few trees, shrubs, and animals along the riverbeds. Here’s another aerial view showing the path of an ephemeral river:

By far the coolest critter I found was the longleg armoured corncricket (Acanthoplus longipes), which has superpowers. It is a large, flightless katydid brandishing big, spiny legs and a heavily armored (American spelling) pronotum. When attacked, individuals autohaemorrhage, shooting a jet of toxic hemolymph from the leg joints toward attackers. I wish I had a superpower like that:

Naturally, any creature with such a magnificent superpower fluoresces under UV light:

Frankly, the rest of this post is anticlimactic. What could possibly beat a longleg armoured corncricket? Not a pretty brush jewel beetle (Julodis humeralis):

A Namib rock agama (Agama planiceps) doesn’t beat a longleg armoured corncricket, not even when it is chowing down on a bug:

One night I went on a walk to see what would fluoresce under my UV light. I found this gecko. Sure, fluorescence is cool and I wish I could do it, but does this gecko autohaemorrhage? No, it does not. The folks at iNaturalist couldn’t identify it – apparently one needs the visible spectrum to make a positive ID:

This is tentatively identified as an orange lesser-thicktail scorpion (Uroplectes planimanus), another critter with the minor UV-fluorescence superpower. Interestingly, researchers do not know why scorpions evolved fluorescence.

Now for the birds. Sadly, they have no superpowers at all. Our lodge had a water feature that was the only surface water for miles around. I spent hours watching the birds bathe and drink.

A violet-backed starling (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster). The color is produced not by pigment but by thin-film interference: stacks of hollow melanosomes in the feather barbules refract light at specific wavelengths. The male can modulate its apparent coloration through posture:

A black-fronted bulbul (Pycnonotus nigricans):

A Namaqua dove (Oena capensis):

A red-headed finch (Amadina erythrocephala):

The southern masked weaver (Ploceus velatus). Egg color varies among females, allegedly as a defense against brood parasitism by the Diederik cuckoo. Because the cuckoo cannot know egg color before entering the nest, color polymorphism in the weaver population raises the probability of parasite detection and egg ejection. Not a superpower, but cool nonetheless. I just like the bokeh in this photo:

Finally, the requisite Namibian desert night sky photos:

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 26, 2026 • 8:30 am

We can keep going for two days after this, but if you got photos, please send ’em. Thanks.

Today’s batch is from Ephraim Heller, continuing his photos from a recent trip to Namibia. Ephraim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his pictures by clicking on them. Don’t miss the chameleon with its tongue extended!

Today I continue my series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. I’m organizing the posts by habitat, in the order of our visits, so that you get a sense of the ecosystems. My last post focused on the Namib desert. This post focuses on my next destination, Swakopmund, a cold, fog-covered town along the Namib desert’s Atlantic coast.

Annual rainfall is less than 20 mm, but the town experiences ~180 days/year of thick fog, generated offshore when the cold Benguela Current contacts warm desert air. The fog typically settles in the early morning hours and burns off by mid-morning. The fog provides moisture that enables some vegetation to grow in a strip along the ocean. In addition, there is a small, brackish estuary at the mouth of the ephemeral Swakop River that supports marine birds. This photo, taken with my iPhone on an after-dinner stroll from a restaurant to our hotel, gives you a sense of the fog:

A herd of dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius) grazing along the shoreline often startles visitors to Swakopmund. Dromedaries are not native to Africa. The species was domesticated on the southeastern Arabian Peninsula about 4,000 years ago and has not occurred naturally in the wild for nearly 2,000 years. They were imported to Namibia by the German colonial troops in 1889 for use as military pack animals in what was then German South West Africa. The animals I saw grazing along the shore are used by a local company for tourist rides. This is a handsome individual:

However, not everyone gets to ride the camels:

The most impressive aspect of our stay in Swakopmund was a short “living desert” safari. A guide took us on a walk and drive in the sand dunes immediately around the town. Where I saw pristine sand, the guide saw the telltale marks of animals burrowed in the sand.

The first individual he unearthed was a desert sidewinding adder (Bitis peringueyi), a small, ambush predator. The one he found was about 15 cm (6 in) in length. The eyes are positioned on top of the head rather than on the sides, adapted to allow the adder to bury itself in loose sand, leaving only the eyes exposed at the surface while waiting for prey. Prey includes sand lizards and barking geckos, which also provide most of the adder’s water needs. I took these close-up photos with my macro lens – kids, don’t try this at home:

Next, our guide uncovered a buried Namib sand gecko (Pachydactylus rangei), certainly the most charismatic of the desert critters. The large feet with webbed toes are good for running on loose sand and for excavating burrows. They burrow into dunes by day to escape the heat, emerging after dark to hunt insects and spiders.

These geckos also emerge during fog events and allow droplets to condense on their skin, then lick water from their own faces and bodies. In 2021 researchers reported that P. rangei produces a neon-green biofluorescence under UV and moonlight conditions using a new mechanism in terrestrial vertebrates. I wish I had known this at the time so I could have photographed them under moonlight. Regardless, these are clearly very happy creatures:

Of course, no visit to the Namib desert dunes is complete without a FitzSimon’s burrowing skink (Typhlacontias brevipes). The FBS is blind, legless, just a few inches long, and spends its entire life burrowed in the sand. The species has reduced eyes without eyelids and no visible external ear openings. It detects prey (ants, termites, ant-lions, and small beetles) by sensing the vibrations they produce when moving through sand:

Finally, our living desert guide found surface critter: a Namaqua chameleon (Chamaeleo namaquensis). The Namaqua chameleon is one of the largest chameleons in southern Africa (up to 25 cm or 9.8 in), and unusual in the family for being terrestrial rather than arboreal. In the early morning, this chameleon darkens to near black to maximize heat uptake; as body temperature rises, it lightens toward grey-brown to reduce absorption. Water is obtained through the diet, from morning dew, and through hygroscopic skin that absorbs moisture by capillary action (wow!). Nasal salt glands excrete excess sodium chloride and potassium, allowing salts to be processed without renal water loss:

The eyes can move independently, looking in different directions:

The tail is shorter than those of arboreal chameleons, and has lost its prehensile abilities:

The guide had some mealworms with which to entice the chameleon. It’s tongue was so fast its movement was hard to see with the naked eye:

Now for the birds. First up, a colorful common waxbill (Estrilda astrild):

Next, a common but lovely speckled pigeon (Columba guinea) with an excellent hair stylist and makeup artist:

A portrait of another common but colorful bird, the helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris). This one looks pensive:

We took a tourist boat cruise to see the Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) colony near Walvis Bay. The Cape fur seal population along the southwest African coast is estimated at 1.5 – 2 million animals, roughly two-thirds of which occur along the Namibian coast.

Cape fur seals are eared seals (family Otariidae) rather than true seals. Unlike true seals, which move on land by undulating their bodies, otariids can rotate their hind flippers forward and walk on all four limbs, giving them considerably more agility.

During breeding season, bulls fight to establish territories and maintain harems of 5 to 25 females. A bull may lose nearly half his body mass over the six-week breeding season without leaving his territory to feed. Mothers leave their pups on shore while they feed in the ocean. When they return to shore, mothers and pups find each other by making unique vocalizations, amazing in colonies of tens of thousands of animals.

Seal colonies on land are predated by black-backed jackals and brown hyenas, who target pups. At sea, they are preyed upon by white sharks and killer whales. Here’s a photo from the boat:

I’ll have more cape fur seal photos in a future post.

Our guide on the boat feeds fish to the great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus). While I don’t support baiting, one of the pelicans landed on the boat for its free meal, enabling me to get this portrait:

Reader’s wildlife photos

June 23, 2026 • 8:15 am

Why is this feature like lox and a schmear? A: Because it’s on a roll. (Sort of.) I now have a total of four sets of photos in the queue, one of which I’ll post today. But please send your good photos, and a warm handshake to those who have done so.  I hope people realize that readers who send in good add a unique feature for this website: high-quality and delightful pictures of nature. Do compliment the photographer if you like their photos.

Today we have pictures from Ephraim Heller, documenting his recent trip to Namibia. (More will be coming.) Ephraim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Today I begin a series on a May-June 2026 visit to Namibia. I’m organizing the posts by habitat, in the order of our visits, so that you get a sense of the ecosystems.

The Namib Desert is the oldest desert on earth, with conditions that have persisted for 55 – 80 million years. At ~80,950 square km (31,250 sq mi), it is far and away the largest desert I have visited. It stretches ~2,000 km (1,200 mi) along southwest Africa’s Atlantic coast, including the entire length of Namibia. There is essentially no rain at all near the coast (2 mm/year average), but in places there is coastal fog that is the primary source of water for the desert plants. The stable climate over millions of years has resulted in high endemism. Of the ~3,500 documented species in the Namib, more than 1,000 are endemics.1-2. On the drive from the capital, Windhoek, visitors pass through Solitaire. It consists of a fuel station, a bakery and café, a general store, a small lodge, and a yard decorated with old vehicles. The nearest real town is hundreds of kilometers distant. When vehicles broke down, cars and trucks were simply left. Some of the collection includes American classics from the mid-twentieth century:

While having lunch at a picnic table in Solitaire, I observed several yellow mongooses (Cynictis penicillata) playing. Technically, Solitaire is semi-desert, so there are a few shrubs for the mongoose. They often share burrow systems with the local ground squirrels (Xerus inauris), which confused me as I tried to decide if I was seeing mongooses or ground squirrels. This is a mongoose:

Our destination in the Namib desert was Sossusvlei, where the sand dunes are among the highest in the world. “Dune 7” dune, the tallest, is 388 m (1,273 ft) in height. Vlei is the Afrikaans word for “marsh,” while sossus is Nama for “no return” or “dead end”.  The area is the drainage basin for the ephemeral Tsauchab river. The Namib Sand Sea, of which the Sossusvlei dune field is a part, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The dunes began forming around five million years ago. Sand from the Orange River was carried west into the Atlantic, swept north by the Benguela Current, then driven back inland by the prevailing south-southwest winds. Over millions of years the sand accumulated into a dune field ~32,000 sq km (12,400 sq mi) in extent. The sand is iron-oxide coated quartz, and younger sand near the base of dunes is paler while older sand higher up is a deeper reddish-orange, due to greater oxidation. The colors in these photos are real, and not simply me going wild with the saturation slider in my photo editing software. For scale, note the full-grown trees at the base of the dune in the first photo.

About a kilometer walk across the sand lies a small clay pan named Deadvlei (meaning “dead marsh”) where reside camelthorn trees (Vachellia erioloba) that have been dead for 600 – 900 years. There has been no water here since the fourteenth century! The combination of extreme dryness and intense heat inhibits microbial activity so thoroughly that the wood is preserved.

Gemsbok (Oryx gazella) and springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) antelope are the primary large mammals of the Namib. Gemsbok can survive for extended periods without drinking free-standing water, meeting their requirements through vegetation. Here is a gemsbok in its habitat:

Here is a herd of springbok in their environment:

Toktokkie beetles (Onymacris unguicularis) are a group of darkling beetles with over 200 species in Namibia, and 20 in the Namib desert. We saw them throughout Namibia. I don’t know the species of this individual, but some species engage in fog-harvesting: when Atlantic fog rolls in, beetles climb to the crests of dunes and orient head-downward, body inclined away from the wind. Water condenses on the elytra, runs along ridges on the beetle’s back, and reaches the mouthparts. A beetle can take in water equivalent to ~40% of its body mass from a single fog event.

The garden locust or tree locust (Acanthacris ruficornis), is widespread across sub-Saharan Africa. Tt is technically a grasshopper:

Namaqua doves (Oena capensis) are ubiquitous, but I think they are pretty. They are the smallest doves on the African continent:

The Kalahari tree skink (Trachylepis spilogaster). I had no idea that some skinks are arboreal:

The extreme dryness and very low population density of Namibia make it one of the prime sites for astronomical observatories and night sky photographers:

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 14, 2026 • 8:15 am

Again we have the last batch of wildlife photos on hand.  Send yours in, please!

Today’s group of photos come from reader Ephraim Heller; it’s the second part of a two-part series (part 1 is here). Ephraim’s text is indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island on the coast of Georgia. Much of it is salt marsh, with a few islands in freshwater ponds for wading bird rookeries. I was lucky to spend a week there in April during the nesting season. My last post focused on the wading birds; this one focuses on other species.

A well camouflaged American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) lurking in the rookery pond:

American oystercatchers (Haematopus palliatus) are obligate specialists on intertidal invertebrates that feed in two ways: finding a mussel or oyster with its shell slightly ajar, the bird inserts the bill and severs the adductor muscle before the shell can close; alternatively, it hammers the shell directly to fracture it.

I took these photos on the shore where the oystercatchers were nesting. The sustained 40 mph winds whipped the beach into an abrasive sandstorm, which bothered me much more than it bothered the birds:

Royal terns (Thalasseus maximus) are among the larger terns on the Atlantic coast:

Boat-tailed grackles (Quiscalus major) have a mating system I have not previously encountered: females aggregate in colonial nesting groups while dominant males compete for access to the entire group. Although the dominant male at a colony performs the majority of observed copulations, genetic analysis shows he sires fewer than 40% of nestlings. Females regularly copulate with other males outside the colony and return to lay eggs that are not the dominant male’s offspring.

The long toes of the common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) allow it to walk atop floating vegetation.

Red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) drum on resonant surfaces to broadcast their territories and for mate attraction. The tree cavities they excavate and abandon become nests for other species, such as owls, bluebirds, and flying squirrels. They often cache food in bark crevices.

The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). Garter snakes are viviparous, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs, with typical litters of 15–40 babies.

Readers’ wildlife photos

June 12, 2026 • 8:15 am

Voilà: my last batch of photos, this time a small selection from Norm Gilinsky, including two species we have in Botany Pond.  Norm’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

All of these photos were taken with an ordinary iPhone on June 1 on the eastern shore of Lake Washington just east of Seattle.

Extravaganza:

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the poikilotherms have come back to life, finding homoiotherms by their sides. This picture, and the others, are from the Kirkland side (east side) of Lake Washington. Mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) and Red-eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) living the lush life:

Red-eared Sliders close-up:

Red-eared Sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans), ebullient in the late spring warmth. Red-eared Sliders have driven our Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) almost to the brink of extinction, but we love them nonetheless:

Afternoon snooze:

We came across this sleepy bunch of Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) just off a walking path in the Lake Washington nearshore wetland. People were gawking at them and photographing them, but they didn’t care. Maybe they even liked the attention:

Lounging Cottontails:

June 1 was a warm one in western Washington this year, and these Eastern Cottontail bunnies (Sylvilagus floridanus) were taking dust baths and lounging. Living life to the max.

Nootka Rose:

One of our native roses (Rosa nutkana). As with all the life form in this set, this Nootka was all puffed up at its showy best: