Nectar-Licking Wolves | Rats Helping Baobabs | Elephant Declines | Fireball Season
Ethiopian Wolf is Largest Carnivore Recorded Eating Nectar
The most endangered carnivore in Africa has a sweet tooth that may aid the pollination of nectar-rich flowers in Ethiopia’s Bale Highlands, the “Roof of Africa”.
Researchers there observed Ethiopian wolves, a critically-endangered species with less than 500 left in the wild, licking the nectar off red hot pokers — plants with long stems that hold aloft large, spear-shaped flowering heads.
From observations of individual wolves from different packs, the researchers could clearly see the wolves' muzzles coated with pollen as the animals moved from one red hot poker plant to the next.
Individuals licked up to 30 flowering heads in a single feeding session.
It is the first record of a large-bodied carnivore foraging for nectar; smaller ones like mongooses and genets have been recorded feeding on protea nectar in South Africa.
In their study published in Ecology, the research team suggests the wolves’ nectar-licking could help to transfer pollen within local plant patches, complementing the wider pollen dispersal that insects and nectivorous birds like sunbirds are responsible for.
Claudio Sillero, founder of the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme, recalls how he first saw the children of local shepherds in the Bale Highlands licking red hot poker flowers.
“When I later saw the wolves doing the same, I knew they were enjoying themselves, tapping into this unusual source of energy.”
An Ethiopian wolf feeds on the flowers of red hot pokers | Adrien Lesaffre
Tiny Rat, African Bush Pig, Ensure Survival of Endangered Baobabs
One of Madagascar’s most photographed tourist sites is the Baobab Avenue of Morondava, but scientists believe these endangered trees — known to science as Adansonia grandidieri — face a crisis because the animals that used to disperse their seeds are extinct.
A. grandidieri is one of Madagascar's six native baobab species. It’s known locally as Renala.
Like their relatives, the iconic Adansonia digitata baobabs that grow on the African continent, Renala baobabs live for hundreds of years but need large animals to crack open their pods and disperse the seeds.
In Madagascar those creatures — giant tortoises and giant lemurs — went extinct centuries ago.
There’s no evidence that any of the large lemurs still living on Madagascar can crack open Renala pods or chew off the chalky pulp surrounding each seed.
But help is at hand courtesy of a cute native Malagasy rat and a wild African pig.
A team of scientists set up camera traps and searched for seed-laden animal dung at two study sites within south-western Madagascar’s dry forests where Renala baobabs grow.
They captured videos and images of Madagascar’s western tuft-tailed rats eating seeds from fallen pods and also found seeds in the dung of African bush pigs — a species that was introduced from mainland Africa several centuries ago.
It’s believed that the rats cache the baobab seeds, aiding higher germination rates far from the parent trees where they have a greater chance of growing to maturity.
The findings suggest that both the pigs and the rats — less glamorous seed dispersers than extinct giant lemurs and tortoises — could help ensure the Renalas’ survival.
Famous avenue of Renala trees in Morondava | Seheno Andriantsaralaza
Elephant Study Finds Bright Spots Amid Widespread Declines
Scientists have collated data from hundreds of elephant population density surveys conducted over the past five decades in Africa and found the average decline of both species of elephants to be 77% across all the sites.
Critically-endangered forest elephants are the hardest hit: on average their population densities declined by 90% across all 150 sites surveyed from 1974-2015. Declines of savanna elephants averaged 70% across all 375 sites surveyed between 1964-2016.
There was, however, some good news. In southern Africa, for instance, 42% of sites surveyed showed population density increases.
West Africa, a region severely affected by declines in forest elephants due to poaching and habitat loss, registered notable increases at four sites: one in Benin and three in Burkina Faso.
“Our results tell us that if well protected and managed, elephant populations can still increase despite increasing pressures surrounding them and their habitats,” says Fiona Maisels, a coauthor of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Trends for both African elephant species before 1960 are still a matter of conjecture, though historical records suggest their declines go back centuries (Roman naturalist Pliny recorded the extinction of savanna elephants in North Africa in the first century AD).
A study published in 2021 suggests that 62 % of the African continent (the likely range of elephants 2,000 years ago) is still suitable for elephants but they’re currently confined to just 17% of it.
Savanna elephants in Chobe National Park, Botswana | Bernard Gagnon | Wikimedia Commons
Nature Notes: Fireballs and Flamboyants
Zimbabwe in early November is sweltering, but it’s also a time of expectation and reward.
This is the month our daughter turns 13, and I’ve always been attentive to the signals from nature that suffuse her birthday month.
“Nature is celebrating the month that you were born,” I’ve told her, probably once too often.
There is the shriek of cicadas, known locally as Christmas beetles. They provide November’s dominant soundtrack, accompanied by the clamorous calls of Levaillant’s cuckoos as they seek out the nests of their hapless hosts.
Abdim’s storks return as suddenly as they left more than eight months ago. They circle above our suburb, seemingly unperturbed by the cawing mobs of pied crows.
The storks are the harbingers of summer rains. In a year like this one, after a painfully long drought, the rains that fell in our part of Harare recently were a merciful reprieve.
Within days of the first downpours, fireballs emerged from the leaf litter.
Their scarlet heads captured the light and shone with an inner glow only matched by the flowers on the nearby flamboyants — trees our landlady planted years ago to mark the passing of a loved one whose favourite colour was red.
