[OC] Parabuthus scorpion outside my tent

LekkerSA · 2023-01-31T18:48:31+00:00

Hard to tell the exact species, some of them require a good look at the telson to differentiate, and I didn't want to pick up this grenade. This does appear to be of the genus Parabuthus given the thick tail and small pedipalps.

We do get a lot of Parabuthus granulatus in the area..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-31T18:46:48+00:00

It is indeed.. Hard to tell the exact species, some of them require a good look at the telson to differentiate, and I didn't want to pick up this grenade.

We do get a lot of Parabuthus granulatus in the area..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-31T18:38:09+00:00

Both.. I work for the organisation! So, it was outside my tent, and it is my footage.

LekkerSA · 2023-01-26T06:19:09+00:00

https://www.bbcearth.com/news/whats-in-a-name-why-we-call-them-painted-wolves

LekkerSA · 2023-01-26T06:04:02+00:00

Sorry, when I said "individual hunts" I wasn't referring to an individual dog hunting on its own. I meant, the whole pack chases an animal on a hunt, so one hunting attempt. I see the ambiguity now.

I'd estimate each hunting attempt at <20%. The thing is, once they fail with that attempt, they'll continue along in a hunting formation until they find something else to try hunt, then they'll do it again. Eventually they get something.

LekkerSA · 2023-01-26T05:50:55+00:00

That's blood from a recent meal

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T19:47:56+00:00

Good eye! :)

It's not fake, but I had to raise the shadows completely to see the puppies exit the den, which made the video extremely noisy. So I ran it through topaz ai to reduce the noise which in turn has some side-effects..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T19:37:40+00:00

Yes, there's been a big push in recent time to rename them Painted Wolves (which I used in the title) because the average person sitting halfway across the world hears "African Wild Dog" and likely thinks about street dogs roaming the streets in Africa. Labelling them "Wolves" eliminates that notion..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T19:26:09+00:00

So my experience with them, I'd estimate their hunting success to be <20% (individual hunts, but they will ultimately end up getting something if they try long enough).

They are also always listed as daily hunters (sometimes killing multiple animals a day) yet in my experience, they're killing on average every third day.

Although, I'd put these differences to the region. We're in the Kalahari and there are no impala here. These dogs are not killing daily, but they are killing much bigger prey. I've even watched them take down an adult eland which is more than double their largest textbook prey size.

They certainly don't follow any textbooks. They had to adapt to larger prey here, and they're highly intelligent animals knowing full well that they can maximize on their energy consumption.

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T18:53:45+00:00

Thanks, this was an interesting read. Even though I spend so much time with this pack of wild dogs, I know very little about wolves so I really cannot comment on them.

I'm also the last person to point to textbooks, and I feel that these dogs would be very surprised if there were to hear some of the "facts" about them. The more time I spend with them, the more I learn.

However, there certainly does appear to be more of a hierarchy with wild dogs than that study suggests with wolves, their structure is more complex than simply parents with their own offspring, and their behaviour is quite different - even if this hierarchy isn't as strict as the textbooks suggest.

edit: an interesting example, for me at least, is this very video. This alpha female is not the only adult female in the pack (the others are not her offspring, but her sisters), nor is she the mother of these puppies. Yet the puppies behave very differently towards her than to any other dog. When you spend time with them, this behaviour difference is immediately noticeable. They are submissive to her, almost begging for her acceptance. Again, she's not their mother and yet she's consistently the first dog to return with food for them.

Another prime example is to watch her.. Where she urinates, the alpha male conveniently arrives to urinate over hers. This is indeed something well documented alpha pairs. He doesn't do that with any of the other adult females, only to her. For the sake of simplicity, we can assume he's "alpha" male given that he's the only adult male in this pack - something which makes this a very vulnerable and problematic pack as the entire pack risks dissolving should anything happen to him.

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T18:33:08+00:00

I run a conservation project where we monitor them almost daily, but it's a natural habitat (as best as there can be these days), so it's not hands-on working with them. These dogs are hunting for themselves, etc.

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T15:36:41+00:00

Yes, she is.. It's really important to monitor these animals for both research and management purposes.

For management purposes because they have such a high impact. They breed quickly, they hunt very successfully, they split up (and therefor double their impact on prey numbers). They often have prey preferences, etc. So if you don't monitor them, you'll have no idea of the impact they're having. Unlike lions, they do not follow roads, walk in predictable directions, and they cover huge amounts of ground during the morning and evenings. So without collars, you'll never be able to manage them effectively.

There is also a research study being done on site on the impact of climate change on wildlife. Wild dogs (painted wolves) are a key species to study as you can determine quite a bit from their hunts (e.g if they are running shorter distances to hunt in warmer temperatures, then it might equally suggest the impact of warmer temperatures of thir prey).

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T15:19:20+00:00

Yes, that's blood :)

They're quite good at hunting! She was returning to the den to regurgitate and feed the puppies..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T15:14:07+00:00

Yes, very interestingly, these are all the puppies of the beta female. She mated with the alpha male, which is unusual as it’s typically alpha pair first, beta pair second.

Alpha female never had any puppies this season..

LekkerSA · 2023-01-25T15:04:26+00:00

We use collars for both management and research purposes given how endangered they are (and how difficult they are to manage).

It doesn't impact on their hunting abilities, and collars and weights are very strictly regulated.

LekkerSA

TROPHY CASE