Angulate Tortoise making a break for it

Dear Readers, today we had a full day in the Namaqualand National Park, home to the highest concentration of succulent plants in the world, and more than a thousand endemic species. As previously mentioned, the vast sheets of orange and yellow daisies (including many gazanias) have finished, but there was still plenty to hold the attention.

Of course, me being me, I was greatly interested in the insects, like this blister beetle…

And this plant, a member of the borage family, was covered in bees and butterflies, including painted ladies which are all over the Western Cape at the moment.

The rock hyraxes are becoming firm favourites – they seem to be watching us from every rock. They remind me a lot of the marmots that we see in Austria, and I suspect that they occupy a similar ecological niche. However, the closest living relative of the hyrax is the elephant, so they are not related.

This next was a great surprise, however. What the hell is it?

This is a species of fungus, probably Podaxis beringamensis. For most of the time it grows happily in the termite mound, but every so often it breaks out. The termites probably don’t appreciate this, as it opens up the mound to infection and invasion, and I wonder if some of the debris around the base of the fungus is an attempt to repair the damage.

And how about this small army of locusts? We’re seeing a lot of these about this year, and I’m wondering if the early rains have contributed. These are Red Milkweed locusts, and they seem to spend lots of time hanging around and munching on the spring vegetation.

This was a great introduction to the plants and animals of the Namaqualand region, and I’ll be posting more when my wi-fi signal permits. Off for a trip around the Kamieskroon mountain range tomorrow. Onwards!