SOUTH AFRICA TRIP

[Gabriel Martínez]

Like Gertjan and Bobby, this year I made a trip in Christmas. I knew that I would have many free days in middle december, so very fast I looked for flights to a "tropical" place, talked with my mother and girlfriend, and looked for a partner. I knew Aviad Bar from my 2 trips to Israel, and he wanted to visit South Africa. So we visited this country together. It was very hard to find snakes there but Aviad is a expert snake catcher and we had very good experience both in desert, grass lands and forests. In Northern Cape, in "summer", we had 12 and 13º in our nights there, so that nights there was no activity. We had moon most part of the trip, but in the same place, with aprox. same moon, same temperature, no wind and one night we found 8 snakes, and day before and day after just 0-1 snakes. So it´s even more complex than Morocco and other places to know what make to snakes go to roads! Special thanks to Bastien and Martti for their advices about this country. I am impatient to return there. The landscapes in Northern Cape are sometimes very similar to Morocco. It´s like if you are walking in Guelmim. Same holes, similar bushes, similar geckos, similar snakes... incredible!!

Hope that you enjoy with the link, I attach also some photos
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtne ... 787907589/

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[GertJan Verspui]

Damn Gabri, you had a nice christmas also! Love the photographs!

[Niklas Ban]

Nice nice nice!!

[Andre Schmid]

Awesome !

[Mario Riedling]

I don't want to spend christmas with my family any more! I want to spend it with you

[Gabriel Martínez]

Thanks guys. That place is addictive and I am really wondering when I will be able to return there. They have so many species of herps that probably you need more than 10 herp trips to find 1/2 of species. Yesterday a local person confirmed me that we also found a very DOR Dendroaspis polylepis of 1,5-2 meters. This is a subadult or young adult. Adults usually reach 3 meters easily. And they are very fast. Even with tongs mustn´t be easy to handle that black mouth devils.

They have more than 8 Bitis species, 5 Naja species, 2 mambas, 3-4 egg eaters, rhinkals, coral cobras, 2 varanus species, 2 Telescopus species, pythons, amazing geckos, amphibians, etc... really I don´t know what I am doing living in Spain! I think they only need one Atheris species in Kzulu Natal to be my favourite herp country in the world

Incredible...

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[Borji Heras]

Incredible place

[Niklas Ban]

They have more than 8 Bitis species, 5 Naja species, 2 mambas, 3-4 egg eaters, rhinkals, coral cobras, 2 varanus species, 2 Telescopus species, pythons, amazing geckos, amphibians, etc... really I don´t know what I am doing living in Spain! I think they only need one Atheris species in Kzulu Natal to be my favourite herp country in the world

The incredible landscape downthere and the other wildlife should compensate the Atheris..

[Martti Niskanen]

Yesterday a local person confirmed me that we also found a very DOR Dendroaspis polylepis of 1,5-2 meters.

To a "local person", everything is either a black mamba or a green mamba. Where was this snake found?

You did spectacularly well, I'm mighty impressed, especially by the snakes. May I ask what your route was on your trip (roughly, no specific locations)?

Just a very early heads-up. James Harvey is organising the next HAA (http://www.africanherpetology.org) meeting in 2018 somewhere in KZN. A long way away, but just so that you know. Should be fun.

[Gabriel Martínez]

Yes Martti! Most people call all dark snakes Black mamba, but I was talking about local herpetologist. The snake was found in Kzulu Natal very close to Swaziland. The snake was fresh, probably killed 2-3 hours ago, but it was a main road full of trucks so it become flat and destroyed very fast. Talking with herpetologist there it seems that both mamba are not rare in that province, but they have small densities and it´s difficult to find them alive (except when they enter in people houses, which is not rare!! this is confirmed by local herpetologist)

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Although it seems a lot of snakes, really it was very hard to find them. But we made a lot of kilometers checking roads at night, flipping trash, etc... as I told you, some night were really bad, and other good. One night we found 8 snakes (some alive when we found them, but with a car hit, and finally dead in some minutes). It´s like if the activity change a lot in 50kms, from 1 day to the next day, etc... really strange!

The route was Johannesburg to Karoo-Namaqualand (Namibia border), kalahari desert (Namibia-Botswana border) and Kzulu Natal. More than 7000kms!!!!

It could be really great to return to KZN. Maybe in 2018