Dendrohyrax Arboreus – Southern Tree Hyrax
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Herpetofaunal Survey of the Ongeluksnek (Malekgalonyane) Nature Reserve in the Foothills of the Drakensberg, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
Herpetology Notes, volume 13: 717-730 (2020) (published online on 25 August 2020) Herpetofaunal survey of the Ongeluksnek (Malekgalonyane) Nature Reserve in the foothills of the Drakensberg, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa Werner Conradie1,2,* Brian Reeves3, Sandile Mdoko3, Lwandiso Pamla3, and Oyama Gxabhu3 Abstract. The results of a herpetofaunal survey of Ongeluksnek Nature Reserve, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa are presented here. Combination of visual encounter survey methods and standard Y-shape trap arrays were used to conduct the survey. A total of 26 species (eight amphibians and 18 reptiles) were recorded, representing 29 quarter-degree grid cell records, of which 62% represented the first records for these units. Furthermore, we document the presence of three species of snakes (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia, Hemachatus haemachatus and Homoroselaps lacteus) for the first time for the whole degree square of 3028 (approx. 100 km2). This study highlights the need to survey poorly known regions to enable us to understand and document the full distributional extent of species. We also discuss the impact of uncontrolled fires on the absence of grassland specialised species during our survey. Keywords. Amphibia, Reptilia, karroid, conservation, biodiversity, fire Introduction has been done in the southern and western regions (e.g. Branch and Braack, 1987), while the northern and The herpetofaunal richness of South Africa is central areas associated with the former homelands of considered to be amongst the highest in the world the Ciskei and Transkei remained poorly surveyed. In (Branch, 1998; Bates et al., 2014; Du Preez and recent years a series of rapid biodiversity studies has Carruthers, 2017; Tolley et al., 2019). -
Epigaeic Invertebrate Community Structure in Two Subtropical Nature Reserves, Eastern Cape, South Africa: Implications for Conservation Management
© Arachnologische Gesellschaft e.V. Frankfurt/Main; http://arages.de/ Arachnologische Mitteilungen / Arachnology Letters 52: 7-15 Karlsruhe, September 2016 Epigaeic invertebrate community structure in two subtropical nature reserves, Eastern Cape, South Africa: Implications for conservation management Augustine S. Niba & Inam Yekwayo doi: 10.5431/aramit5203 Abstract. Epigaeic invertebrates were sampled at non-invaded (‘Indigenous Forest’ and ‘Indigenous Grassland’) and alien-invaded (‘Eu- calyptus’ and ‘Mixed alien’) sub-sites in the Nduli and Luchaba Nature Reserves using pitfall traps. A total of 2054 specimens belonging to three phyla (Arthropoda, Mollusca and Annelida) was caught and sorted into seven orders, 18 families, one tribe, 45 genera (22 identified to species level) and 20 morphospecies. Higher species richness occurred in ‘Indigenous Forest’ and ‘Mixed Alien’ sub-sites while higher specimen counts were made in invaded (‘Mixed Alien’ and ‘Eucalyptus’) sub-sites during summer months, peaking in January. Canonical Correspondence Analysis results show that some measured site variables, e.g. litter depth, grazing intensity, percentage of alien vege- tation cover, and soil chemical properties accounted for invertebrate taxa composition and distribution trends at sub-sites. Although habitat-patch level characteristics (including abiotic factors) were important for determining species distributions, increased levels of infestation by invasive alien vegetation across sub-sites did not necessarily impact on epigaeic invertebrates -
Annual Report Annual
EASTERN CAPE PARKS AND TOURISM ANNUAL REPORT 2018/19 REPORT ANNUAL AND TOURISM EASTERN CAPE PARKS 17-25 Oxford Street | East London | 5213 East London | PO Box 11235 | Southernwood | East London | 5213 Eastern Cape | South Africa +27 (0) 43 492 0881 [email protected] www.visiteasterncape.co.za RP290/2019 ISBN: 978-0-621-47767-2 ANNUAL REPORT Long-beaked common dolphin COVER Photo credit: Mark M Gottlieb – www.MarksAdventures.com Hole in the Wall Photo credit: Marius Labuschagne Pounding waves have helped shape South Africa’s coastline for 160 million years - since continental rifting tore Africa from the ancestral landmass Gondwana, leaving her edges exposed to a unique blend of currents and seas. National Geographic Gondwana was an ancient supercontinent that broke up about 180 million years ago. The continent eventually split into landmasses we recognize today: Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula. CONTENTS PG 5 GENERAL INFORMATION 1 PUBLIC.................................................................................................. ENTITY’S GENERAL INFORMATION 7 2 BO..................................................................................................ARD MEMBERS 8 3 LI...............................................................................................ST OF ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS 10 1 AUDITOR’S REPORT: PREDETERMINED OBJECTIVES 4 FO................................................................................................REWORD BY THE CHAIRPERSON -
Afrotherian Conservation – Number 16
AFROTHERIAN CONSERVATION Newsletter of the IUCN/SSC Afrotheria Specialist Group Number 16 Edited by PJ Stephenson September 2020 Afrotherian Conservation is published annually by the measure the effectiveness of SSC’s actions on biodiversity IUCN Species Survival Commission Afrotheria Specialist conservation, identification of major new initiatives Group to promote the exchange of news and information needed to address critical conservation issues, on the conservation of, and applied research into, consultations on developing policies, guidelines and aardvarks, golden moles, hyraxes, otter shrews, sengis and standards, and increasing visibility and public awareness of tenrecs. the work of SSC, its network and key partners. Remarkably, 2020 marks the end of the current IUCN Published by IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. quadrennium, which means we will be dissolving the © 2020 International Union for Conservation of Nature membership once again in early 2021, then reassembling it and Natural Resources based on feedback from our members. I will be in touch ISSN: 1664-6754 with all members at the relevant time to find out who wishes to remain a member and whether there are any Find out more about the Group people you feel should be added to our group. No one is on our website at http://afrotheria.net/ASG.html automatically re-admitted, however, so you will all need to and on Twitter @Tweeting_Tenrec actively inform me of your wishes. We will very likely need to reassess the conservation status of all our species during the next quadrennium, so get ready for another round of Red Listing starting Message from the Chair sometime in the not too distant future. -
Distribution, Habitat Structure and Troop Size in Eastern Cape
Distribution, habitat structure and troop size in Eastern Cape samango monkeys Cercopithecus albogularis labiatus (Primates: Cercopithecoidea) A dissertation submitted to the Department of Zoology and Entomology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Zoology the University of Fort Hare by Vusumzi Martins Supervisors: Dr Fabien Génin and Prof. Judith Masters GENERAL ABSTRACT The samango monkey subspecies Cercopithecus albogularis labiatus is endemic to South Africa, and known to occur in Afromontane forests. There has been a major decline in this subspecies, exceeding 30% in some populations over the past 30 years, primarily as a result of the loss of suitable habitat. A second samango subspecies, C. a. erythrarchus, occurs near the northern border of South Africa, mainly in coastal lowland forest, and the distributions of the two subspecies do not overlap. C. a. labiatus was thought to be confined to Afromontane forests, but the study described here focused on C. a. labiatus populations that were recently identified in the Indian Ocean Belt forests near East London. I undertook to assess the distribution of C. a. labiatus in the Eastern Cape, to evaluate the habitat structures of the Afromontane and Indian Ocean coastal belt forests, and to understand the effect these habitats have on essential aspects of the socio-ecology of the C. a. labiatus populations. Distribution surveys were conducted in protected areas throughout the Eastern Cape, and samango monkeys were found to be present within forest patches in the Amatola Mountains, Eastern Cape dune forests and the Transkei coastal scarp forests. The sizes and composition of two troops were assessed: one troop in the Amatole forests and one in the Eastern Cape dune forests. -
Fire Regimes in Eastern Coastal Fynbos
Fire regimes in eastern coastal fynbos: drivers, ecology and management by Tineke Kraaij Submitted in fulfilment/partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate in Philosophy in the Faculty of Science at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University August 2012 Promotor: Prof. R.M. Cowling Co-promotor: Dr B.W. van Wilgen Declaration I, Tineke Kraaij, student number 211211583, hereby declare that the thesis for Doctorate of Philosophy is my own work and that it has not previously been submitted for assessment or completion of any postgraduate qualification to another University or for another qualification. I am now presenting the thesis for examination for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy. Tineke Kraaij Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 7 List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. 9 List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... 10 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 11 References .................................................................................................................................................. -
Cape Parrot Big Birding Day Report
17th Annual Parrot Count- Report on the 2014 Cape Parrot Big Birding Day. Colleen T. Downs* School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, P/Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, South Africa. Email: [email protected] *Cape Parrot Working Group Chairperson. Background The Cape Parrot (Poicephalus robustus) is the only parrot species endemic to South Africa and is currently one of South Africa’s Endangered birds. Skead (1971) highlighted that the numbers of Cape Parrots had declined since the early 1900s, particularly in the 1950’s. In 1989 Boshoff estimated less than a 1000 in the wild. So this raised questions: were these declines real and how many Cape parrots were there in the wild? Standard bird counting techniques are unsuitable for Cape Parrots as they are nomadic feeders with unpredictable movements. Parrots’ cryptic colouration combined with dense forest habitats often make them difficult to locate once perched but their loud harsh calls whilst in-flight make their presence known. They are most active during the first few hours after dawn and before sunset, (although during misty conditions these periods can be extended), when they leave and return to their roosts in forest patches. These characteristics allow for a ‘total count’ of the parrots. Consequently the Cape Parrot Big Birding Day (CPBBD) was initiated in 1998, and has been held annually since as part of the conservation effort of the Cape Parrot Working Group. The aim is to determine their occurrence and obtain an accurate population estimate of the Cape Parrot. Over the recent years less than 1600 have been counted in the wild (Downs et al. -
Chapter 15 the Mammals of Angola
Chapter 15 The Mammals of Angola Pedro Beja, Pedro Vaz Pinto, Luís Veríssimo, Elena Bersacola, Ezequiel Fabiano, Jorge M. Palmeirim, Ara Monadjem, Pedro Monterroso, Magdalena S. Svensson, and Peter John Taylor Abstract Scientific investigations on the mammals of Angola started over 150 years ago, but information remains scarce and scattered, with only one recent published account. Here we provide a synthesis of the mammals of Angola based on a thorough survey of primary and grey literature, as well as recent unpublished records. We present a short history of mammal research, and provide brief information on each species known to occur in the country. Particular attention is given to endemic and near endemic species. We also provide a zoogeographic outline and information on the conservation of Angolan mammals. We found confirmed records for 291 native species, most of which from the orders Rodentia (85), Chiroptera (73), Carnivora (39), and Cetartiodactyla (33). There is a large number of endemic and near endemic species, most of which are rodents or bats. The large diversity of species is favoured by the wide P. Beja (*) CIBIO-InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal CEABN-InBio, Centro de Ecologia Aplicada “Professor Baeta Neves”, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] P. Vaz Pinto Fundação Kissama, Luanda, Angola CIBIO-InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. Veríssimo Fundação Kissama, Luanda, Angola e-mail: [email protected] E. -
Protein Sequence Signatures Support the African Clade of Mammals
Protein sequence signatures support the African clade of mammals Marjon A. M. van Dijk*, Ole Madsen*, Franc¸ois Catzeflis†, Michael J. Stanhope‡, Wilfried W. de Jong*§¶, and Mark Pagel¶ʈ *Department of Biochemistry, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands; †Institut des Sciences de l’E´ volution, Universite´Montpellier 2, 34095 Montpellier, France; ‡Queen’s University of Belfast, Biology and Biochemistry, Belfast BT9 7BL, United Kingdom; §Institute for Systematics and Population Biology, University of Amsterdam, 1090 GT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and ʈSchool of Animal and Microbial Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AJ, United Kingdom Edited by Elwyn L. Simons, Duke University Primate Center, Durham, NC, and approved October 9, 2000 (received for review May 12, 2000) DNA sequence evidence supports a superordinal clade of mammals subfamily living outside of Madagascar. To assess the signifi- that comprises elephants, sea cows, hyraxes, aardvarks, elephant cance of the candidate signatures, we use likelihood methods shrews, golden moles, and tenrecs, which all have their origins in (20) to reconstruct their most probable ancestral states at the Africa, and therefore are dubbed Afrotheria. Morphologically, this basal node of the Afrotherian clade. These calculations use a appears an unlikely assemblage, which challenges—by including phylogeny reconstructed independently of the protein under golden moles and tenrecs—the monophyly of the order Lipotyphla investigation. We further use likelihood and combinatorial meth- (Insectivora). We here identify in three proteins unique combina- ods to estimate the probability of the signatures on three tions of apomorphous amino acid replacements that support this alternative morphology-based trees that are incompatible with clade. -
Population Genetics of Dugongs Around Australia: Implications of Gene Flow and Migration
Population genetics of dugongs around Australia: Implications of gene flow and migration © Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries. Artist Ruth Berry. Used with permission. Thesis submitted by Brenda McDonald B.Sc. Hons. (JCU) December 2005 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Schools of Tropical Biology, and Tropical Environment Studies and Geography James Cook University, Townsville. STATEMENT OF SOURCES DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution of tertiary education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledged in the text and a list of references is given ______________________________ ________________ Signature Date i ELECTRONIC COPY I, the undersigned, the author of this work, declare that the electronic copy of this thesis provided to the James Cook University is an accurate copy of the print thesis submitted, within the limits of the technology available. ______________________________ ________________ Signature Date ii STATEMENT OF ACCESS I, the undersigned, author of this work, understand that James Cook University will make this thesis available for use within the University Library and, via the Australian Digital Theses network, for use elsewhere. I Understand that, as an unpublished work, a thesis has significant protection under the Copyright Act and; I do not wish to place any further restriction on access to this work ______________________________ ________________ Signature Date iii Statement of the contribution of others Funding: This project was funded by an ARC linkage grant with industry partners Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. -
Addis Ababa University College of Natural Science School of Graduate Studies Department of Zoology
ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ZOOLOGY The Tree Hyrax (Dendrohyrax arboreus): Feeding Behaviour, Activity Patterns and Traditional Medicinal Use in Kafa Zone, Southwest Ethiopia By: Asrat Aero Mamo In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Zoological Sciences (Ecological and Systematic Zoology) Advisor: Professor M. Balakrishnan December, 2016 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE PROGRAM The Tree Hyrax (Dendrohyrax arboreus): Feeding Behaviour, Activity Patterns and Traditional Medicinal Use in Kafa Zone, Southwest Ethiopia By Asrat Aero Mamo A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Addis Ababa University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Zoological Science (Ecological and Systematic Zoology) Approved by the Examining Board 1. Prof. M. Balakrishnan (Advisor) _________ |_____ |_____| _____| 2. Dr. Tilaye Wube (Examiner) _________ |_____|_____|______| 3. Dr. Habte Jebessa (Examiner) __________ |_____|_____|______| 4. Prof. Abebe Getahun (Chairperson) _________ |_____ |_____|______| ABSTRACT The Tree Hyrax (Dendrohyrax arboreus): Feeding Behaviour, Activity Patterns and Traditional Medicinal Use in Kafa Zone, Southwest Ethiopia Asrat Aero Mamo Addis Ababa University, 2016 Feeding behaviour, activity pattern and traditional medicinal use of the tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax arboreus) were investigated by direct observations and by questionnaire interview method between July – December 2015 in the Kafa Zone, Southwest Ethiopia. Transect method was used to observe feeding behavior and activity patterns and questionnaire interview was used to determine traditional medicinal use of tree hyrax. Tree hyrax shelters and trees with cavities were located. Activities of hyraxes were observed in the morning, midday and afternoon hours. -
A Mammal Survey of the Serra Jeci Mountain Range, Mozambique, with a Review of Records from Northern Mozambique’S Inselbergs
African Zoology 2019, 54(1): 31–42 Copyright © Zoological Society Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved of Southern Africa AFRICAN ZOOLOGY ISSN 1562-7020 EISSN 2224-073X https://doi.org/10.1080/15627020.2019.1583081 A mammal survey of the Serra Jeci Mountain Range, Mozambique, with a review of records from northern Mozambique’s inselbergs Tim van Berkel1* , Emidio Sumbane2, Samuel EI Jones1,3 and Merlijn Jocque1,4 1 Biodiversity Inventory for Conservation (BINCO), Glabbeek, Belgium, 2 Natural History Museum, Praca Travessia do Zambeze, Maputo, Mozambique 3 School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey 4 Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecology (ATECO), Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels, Belgium *Corresponding author, email: [email protected] The mountains of northern Mozambique have remained poorly studied biologically until recent years with surveys covering a variety of taxonomic groups highlighting their biological and conservation value. Even so, the medium and large mammal fauna remains poorly known and to date no systematic mammal surveys have been published from any of Mozambique’s mountains. We present results of a medium and large mammal survey of Serra Jeci’s Mt Chitagal, Mt Sanga and the Njesi Plateau in Niassa, northern Mozambique; the first mammal diversity data collected from these isolated mountains. We recorded 27 mammal species, of which six represent range expansions; Sykes’s monkey (Cercophitecus mitis), Mozambique dwarf galago (Paragalago granti), Smith’s red rock hare (Pronolagus rupestris), lesser cane rat (Thryonomys gregorianus), rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) and African buffalo (Syncerus caffer). We also reviewed and collated records of medium and large mammals from previously published fieldwork on northern Mozambique’s mountains, amounting to a total of 34 large mammal species from seven montane areas, highlighting the lack of mammalian knowledge in Mozambique’s Afromontane habitats.