Motorcycle chronicles: Walking on Swartkops

in #nature6 years ago

While my mechanic was getting his hands dirty, I went up the hill. Swartkops is an odd little hill just outside Krugersdorp, part of the Maropeng Cradle of Humankind area where the Sterkfontein caves have been the source of many fossilised remains of our earliest ape-man ancestors. I wasn't expecting to find any fossils although I was told to keep an eye out for warthogs. A Warthog is a rather spectacularly ugly wild pig that looks like this. As you can see from the tusks, this isn't a creature that you want to mess with either.

640px-Southern_warthog_(Phacochoerus_africanus_sundevallii)_male.jpg
Image: Wikipedia, Sharp Photography,, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

There was plenty of evidence that the warthogs had been there very recently: plenty of overturned rocks, dug up bulbs and other signs of food foraging and the stuff you've all been waiting for: fresh pig poop!

warthog dung.jpg

I walked around for 2 hours or so, photographing various plants and animals and then suddenly, there was movement in the bushes ahead. The warthog! I wasn't quick enough with the camera as he trotted off in the opposite direction but I saw no reason to pursue him and find myself on the business end of those tusks.

This creature was more amenable to being photographed in its shiny green glitter suit:

cuckoo wasp.jpg

It's a cuckoo wasp, a non-aggressive creature that gets it's name from its habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other wasps, such as the potter wasps that I featured here. The adult wasps feed on nectar, which is why it was hanging around on this flower.

tumbleweed.jpg

This beauty, a Tumbleweed, lives in the lower grassland, unmolested by the warthogs because it is a highly toxic medicinal plant that also has psychoactive compounds and is sometimes used for inducing visions by local medicine men. Too much and it will kill you - not one to try at home. The other interesting aspect of this plant is its adaptation to fire. It mainly flowers after having been burned and then it produces the large spiky seed-pod that gives it is name. This seed-pod then rolls along, propelled by wind and disperses its seeds, which are held at the end of the spokes.

Despite the cold weather, there are still butterflies around although this one must have died in the night, it still had dew on the wings.

butterfly.jpg

I found some other interesting plants as well, but I will feature those another time.

Next stop on the homeward journey: the nursery and all the ugly garden shit I love to photograph.

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Everything is wonderfull. I love every story that informs me about aspects of nature and its creatures.
I always like to read you. Greetings @nikv and follow the adventure.

psychoactive tumbleweed is pretty interesting!
any idea what the active compounds are?

Various lily alkaloids: galanthamine, buphanidrine. Buphanindrine has shown effects similar to muscarine, found in fly agaric. There are various compounds in the plant that can kill in higher doses and many of our lily species are extremely dangerous. This one is also used as arrow poison

We have such animals with huge fangs called boars. But they are very few. Hunters killed a lot of them.
Cuckoo's also put our eggs in other people's nests.

Ours are also few these days

Great adventure, i would have loved that hike and all the things to see.

It's so good to be able to do this regularly

Looks like you had a great time exploring. Those warthogs look amazing, and so does the cuckoo wasp.

It was great, I have never seen a cuckoo wasp before and the warthog was unexpected

Better to chase the butterflies and flower. I've heard too many bad stories about wild hogs. Very nasty when cornered.
We have dangerous wild hogs in our area too. But I think yours may be uglier.
Glad you made it out alive!😎

Thanks! Not many bugs and flowers in the middle of winter, though. I hope the pig poop was interesting ;)

It was about as expected...

Interesting pit stop, seems it was worth it though, great post,
stay blessed...

resteemed ;-)

Pleasure, best of luck on your journey :-)

My friend's mom was speared by a warthog! Right through her thigh. They're unassumingly dangerous!

They have a nasty reputation

I hear they smell pretty bad too, LOL

They are pretty funky-smelling. Not a dirty smell, just a wild animal smell

That was a big poop!!!

Awww poor butterfly; it is so pretty.... I wish I could collect it to keep my collection. I'm surprised at the wings being open as it died though. I would have thought it would be closed.

Many of the dead butterflies I have seen have had open wings. It doesn't seem to make a difference

I see, this is interesting. I'll be on a look out for dead butterflies to add to my collection. By having their wings open helps to look at them easier under the microscope.

What a great day to have your motorcycle worked on. The warthog looks as if it comes from ancient animals. The butterfly so pretty and the scatterings were interesting. Lol 🐓🐓

Thank you, I enjoyed myself

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