Another herp trip I was fortunate to be a part of in 2018 was this one, to Uganda. I went with the same two friends from Thailand, +1 other who wasn't able to make the Thailand trip earlier in the year. We flew from London to Brussels and then on to Entebbe, via Kigale. Not a bad set of flights, but a full day travelling.
We were met at the airport by the awesome Jeff from Self Drive Uganda who was our companion for the week we were in Uganda. The local help came in the form of Nsaggu - an unstoppable snake-catching machine who seemingly just had to be let loose in some habitat and would turn up something good. I don't think we had a day without any snakes at all, and on most days we would have one of the 'big-hitters' - be it a cobra, gaboon, or bush viper. A nice mixture of medium and small-hitters made up most of the rest of the snakes we saw.
Habitats searched were mostly agricultural areas, savannah-grassland habitat or the remaining patches of forest around the edge of these areas. We would generally be out from around 9am to 5pm each day with Jeff and Nsaggu, then for a few hours just the 4 of us after dark; one night Nsaggu came with us, too. We certainly saw the bulk of our species in the daytime, no doubt in part to the decades worth of experience Nsaggu brought to the team. All in all a great trip and I thoroughly recommended this country to anyone interested in east African herping.
As usual I won't do a long commentary so here are some shots!
One thing I have tried to do more of in recent years, when I am in the field, is record environmental and morphometric data. Even if I don't work directly with certain species at the present time, you never know when this sort of first-hand data may come in useful for others or yourself. It's useful for me in my job at ZSL plus I find it really interesting. With this in mind, if anyone is willing to share length & weight data from individuals of any of the 'large' Bitis species please drop me a pm
For example, this gaboon viper was found basking on top of some grass in a clearing in the papyrus, beside a forest patch. Exactly where the snake was found, on the surface of the grass, a temperature of 32.2*C was recorded with a UVi in full sun of 12.2. For the most part the sky was slightly overcast, but even under fully clouded conditions a UVi approaching 6 was recorded. In a captive setting we probably would have gone for a similar bask temperature but a lower UVi of perhaps 4 in this zone, with an ambient UVi of 1. Goes to show how even with the best intentions you could be way off the mark in terms of replicating nature. Obviously this is just a single observation, but in time these small anecdotes may add up to reveal some interesting contrasts between wild behaviour and captive management.
That night we headed back to the same forest as night one where we got the Blanding's. The only snake this night was a small Toxicodryas pulverulenta found active on the ground.
The following day was our final full day, which we dedicated to trying to see mambas. Splitting up and searching plantations and small forest areas yielded 3 or so for the Sag-man, however none were seen by us and all evaded capture. Never mind - a consolation squamigera just before lunch cheered us all up.
That night we tried a new forest, after picking up Nsaggu from a bar in town. Took around 20 minutes before we heard his whistles which would lead us all to one of our most-wanted snakes - the rough-scaled, or hairy, bush viper (Atheris hispida). Found active around 3m above the ground and then watched while she moved down the vines to the forest floor, seemingly to get to another tree. Apparently the land owners here were not keen on having people in their forest so we were advised to keep disturbance to a minimum. As such, we left the forest after around 40 minutes and the snake was kept overnight before being quietly released in the same place the following day. Nocturnal surface temperatures in the forest while the snake was active were around 19.0*C.
Species list:
Amphibians
Amietophrynus regularis
Hyperolius viridiflavus
Leptopelis bocagii
Leptopelis christyi
Reptiles
Acanthocercus ugandaensis
Mabuya sp.
Trioceros ellioti
Atheris hispida
Atheris squamigera
Boaedon olivaceus
Bitis gabonica
Dendroaspis jamesoni (Nsaggu)
Naja subfulva
Philothamnus heterolepidotus
Psammophis mossambicus (Nsaggu)
Thelotornis kirtlandii
Thrasops jacksonii
Toxicodryas blandingii
Toxicodryas pulverulenta
That's it - hope you enjoyed. If you've got any questions (or Bitis data) do feel free to get in touch!