Some time ago I was driving in Gorongosa when I noticed a large tortoise laying in the middle of the road, stuck upside down in the mud. The animal was alive but had what appeared to be a large wound in the posterior part of its cracked carapace. There were fresh tracks of a civet…
Category: Gorongosa
Mozambique Diary: Sylvan katydids of Gorongosa
A few nights ago, as I was walking towards my cabin along the edge of the Chitengo Camp, I heard a call of a cricket that I did not quite recognize. Cricket calls are unmistakable for their clean, almost melodious quality, very different from the call of a cicada or a katydid, which tend to…
Mozambique Diary: Manticora
Things have been busy here in Chitengo, and I am struggling to find time to update the blog amidst the preparations to our upcoming biodiversity survey of the Cheringoma Plateau. But I simply cannot resist mentioning one of the most remarkable creatures that I have had the pleasure to meet in Gorongosa. Every biologist has…
Mozambique Diary: A talking grasshopper
One of the most endearing characteristics of grasshoppers is their ability to produce sound. Some of the most wonderful memories of my childhood include sitting in a meadow bursting with sounds of insects and watching grasshoppers use their hind legs to produce soft, rhythmical songs, and not realizing that a seed that would eventually blossom…
Mozambique Diary: Playing a detective
For an entomologist few pleasures in life are greater than arriving in a new geographic area and being stumped by unfamiliar and mysterious insects, often ones that he/she had never suspected existed. I had a moment like this last night, when I ran across a strange, metallic blue insect, about 25 mm long, walking on…
Mozambique Diary: It’s good to have my gear back
To celebrate the miraculous recovery of my photographic equipment from the clutches of South African Airways, today I took my new Canon 400mm for a short spin around the Chitengo camp. I usually do not photograph birds and mammals, but there are so many of them around that it would be a shame not to…
The Smaller Majority 