Namaqua Chameleon (Chamaeleo namaquensis)
Namaqua chameleons are superbly adapted to desert life – in the morning, when it’s chilly, they’re dark in colour to absorb the heat required to get them going, but then as the day wears on they become lighter to prevent overheating. They can absorb water through their skin, so can rehydrate when it’s foggy (as it frequently is around the coast). It eats the fast-moving Tenebrionid beetles that I mentioned yesterday but unlike chameleons, it also eats plants, particularly succulents. And it is absolutely voracious – it eats 12 meals per day, with each meal consisting of about 20 beetles. There must be a lot of beetles in the Namib!
And then there was this little guy…this is a Web-Footed Gecko. He’s nearly transparent (you can see his heart beating) and during the day he hides out in tunnels under the sand. Then, as dusk falls, he emerges to munch on the poor old Tenebrionid beetles.
Namib Web-Footed Gecko (Pachydactylus rangei)
Looking at those eyes, you might wonder how they keep the sand out when they’re burrowing. Well, apparently they have a clear covering over each eye called a ‘spectacle’, and they keep this clean by giving it a lick (as opposed to using a microfibre cloth like I do).
Our guide was quite an opinionated chap, with views on gender that made my hair stand on end, but he obviously loved the desert and the animals that live there. He explained that the dunes at Swakopmund, unlike the red dunes that we’d seen previously, were still moving, and when you looked at the yellow sand you could see how fluid it was. We went for a very exciting bumpy ride up to the top of the dunes for a proper look.
And then it was back to Swakopmund. Tomorrow, we’re off to Twylfontein, for a look at some 6000 year-old carvings by the nomadic peoples of the Namib, and to search for the desert-adapted elephants of Damaraland. Let’s see what we find!
How wonderful to spot that chameleon!