We would love to promote your business on our Sodwana Bay Information Directory. We have a wide variety of packages ranging from FREE to Fully paid LISTINGS. Don’t worry if you do not have the funds right a way – You can signup with a FREE text only listing and later upgrade… Asks us how? info@sodwanabayinformation.co.za Originally posted 2015-05-14 15:32:15.
Afrotyphlops schlegelii, commonly known as Schlegel’s beaked blind snake or Schlegel’s giant blind snake, is a species of snake in the family Typhlopidae. The species is endemic to eastern and southern Africa, and bears the distinction of being the world’s largest typhlopid. It is harmless to humans and lives exclusively on a diet of termites. Source: WikiPedia We usually tell someone they are as blind as a bat, but why do we only use bats as illustrations to describe how blind we are? There are a lot of other creatures out there that are just as blind or even blinder than bats, but they never get credit for their way of navigating the world! Living close to a nature reserve without borders can bring excitement almost every day… We live next to the Isimangaliso wet lands park a world recognized heritage site, but occasionally there might be a few strays that stray outside the protection of the park, such as – the occasional hippo, monkeys, monitor lizards, mongoose and of course snakes wandering out of its borders. You wake up in the morning wondering what excitement the day will bring in your own yard… No need to go to a nature reserve to find some fun, exciting things, they decide to come to us… Although sometimes I wonder how the larger creatures such as monitor lizards and tortoises manage to get into our yard through a tight fence… We have encountered a few snake species around our yard and even in our house before, to name a few snake species – the brown house snake, an Eastern Green snake falling on our Tv and than later found on a nearby tree next to our house, a East African Shovel snout snake tryna hide away in our door post (We thought it might’ve been a Stiletto snake), these are just to name a few… Our latest snake find is the Schlegel’s beaked blind snake… It has a weird crown on its head, black and white spotted with a white belly and it is hard to tell it’s head from its tail, as we discovered this morning while it couldn’t stop wriggling… Apparently it is a really rare find as they usually stay under ground… I wonder what this one was doing above ground? It tried to burrow a hole to get away from us, but we know better than to just leave an unknown snake close to our house, especially not knowing of it’s venomous or not… So far we have been lucky enough only to find non-venomous snakes, but still stay cautious… Although all the snakes mentioned above are non-venomous they still have teeth and mouths big enough to bite if feeling threatened… Our family freak out every time we show them a new snake… Some find it fascinating and exciting, whilst others vow never to come visit while there are snakes around… It is really funny seeing different peoples reactions to snakes… A few fun facts about these tiny snakes: They only grow up to 60 – 70 cm or maximum of 95 cm… So maybe up to a school ruler and a half… That is really not big for a snake… These snakes live solely on termites and their larvae and are no threat to humans… Now I know why the snake was above ground… These Snakes often emerge above ground after heavy rains… I guess their houses might be flooded underneath the ground or they chasing after the termites that have now started making new nests? These snakes have no idea when to stop eating – well that is my opinion… Ever heard of an obese wild snake?! I have never heard of any wild animal living in the wild ever been obese till now… Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are as blind in sight as they are in their appetite… These snakes often over eat themselves – who knew termites could be so fattening…. I get why there tails are so fat and not pointy like almost every other snake out there! These obese snakes are awesome snacks for predators such as birds of prey and other carnivorous snakes – more like cannibal snakes! I think these snakes are blind for a reason… They live most of their lives underground and have very little use for their sight… They have scales that cover their eyes, so they are not completely blind, but don’t see well at all either… Sort of like a mole… The Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are the largest snake in their family… Makes you wonder how small can snakes be before been classified as worms? Our factual sources for this article came from: WikiPedia and Snake Bite institute Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.
For those who follow our blogs you must’ve read the article about the cute small Snowflake eel.. They may be ankle biters, but no real harm will come from them, especially that they are so small and are super shy rather choosing to flea then attack! But what do you do when you encounter their much larger cousins that might be able to bite your ankle right off given the chance… Well our solution was to flee to the nearest, shallowest smallest rock we could find! Ok, let me reverse too the beginning! We were on our way back to shore after experiencing a super awesome neap tide… The water was only 0.3 m high in low tide and was the shallowest we have ever seen in Sodwana! It was already quite an eventful day, we found a puffer fish, a lionfish and a snowflake eel all in one day… That has to be a record of how many exotic creature we found in one day! We were almost back on dry land when Tom stopped us dead in our tracks, luckily he spotted the eel, we were literally heading straight for it and if Tom didn’t see it might even have stepped on… We switched the GoPro on to try film it – wasn’t aware about how it loves the camera spot light. It left it’s sunbathing spot to come show off to the camera, but obviously a wild animal swimming straight to you especially with razor sharp teeth usually means RUN!!!! Like I mentioned before, we chose the smallest, shallowest, nearest rock we could find… I think the people that saw us standing on this tiny rock must’ve thought we were crazy! Our eel was not very happy, if it really wanted to, it could’ve grabbed one of our legs, but instead it swam as close as possible to rock and swam past us… We later watched the video of this encounter, unfortunately nothing worth showing, but we figured out the poor eel was just so excited to have it’s picture taken and was really just tryna pose for the camera… I think this poor Eel was very disappointed in us for running away from it and got mad tryna get one more shot of it’s self in the camera… We have heard of a really friendly moray Eel that loves the attention of cameras, obviously we always thought the eel lived in the open deep water seas, where all the Scuba divers go to swim… But now we know it likes to visit the snorkelers as well… Kinda disappointed now because we could’ve had really awesome footage of a beautiful Honey Comb Moray Eel… The worst part about it all was that while doing some homework about these creatures to my article – I found out all though they might be dangerous, they don’t really care to hunt during the day and will much rather sleep or sunbathe than attack anything… You really have to annoy the poor creature for it to even think about fighting you off in the day time – although night time is an entire different story, you don’t wanna be mistaken for food… Next time I encounter a Honeycomb Moray Eel, I will definitely be cautious, but not so afraid to give it, it’s 15 seconds of fame… A few Fun Facts about these beautiful creatures: These Honeycomb Eels has numerous names due to it’s numerous different spotted patterns… Some have more leopard spots that are quite large almost resembling patches, whilst others like the one we encountered is super spotty like a cheetah. Their main color an vary between light yellow and white, like we have experienced it all depends on how the light hit the Eel and how deep it is! The spots on the Eel can vary from the Eel its self or because of its environment… Such as if the Eel lives in clear water close to reefs, the spots could be much larger as apposed to those who live deeper in the water without much reefs around… The ones we discovered is actually the opposite way round, but maybe that’s just Sodwana… Like most Eels the Honeycomb Eel loves warm water and will even settle for the red sea… These Eels can be found anywhere in the indo-west pacific ocean… They like to stay close to the reefs during the day and are ready to hunt at night! Next time you wanna plan a vacation make sure to book a beach trip to Sodwana – These Eels are real characters… Honeycomb Eels love tight spaces… Like any other Eel Honeycombs love hiding away in tight fitting holes, that’s if they can find a spot that is uninhabited by another creature… If there are no small holes which the Eel can sleep in they will also reside to lying under coral/rock ledges, since they are nocturnal, they are rarely seen active during the day, if seen at all! We were extremely lucky to have found this Honeycomb Eel Sunbathing during the day out in the open! Honeycomb Eels are super efficient for their environment, they help keep invasive species at bay, such as the Lion Fish. Most already know that lion fish can be super invasive and destroy entire coral reefs if not kept in check by their natural predators… I am so glad we have Moray eels in our reefs at Sodwana Bay, we have spotted a few Lion Fish in the rock pools already, good thing they will never the opportunity to take over our reefs… There are to other popular names for the Eels: the laced Moray or Leopard moray, makes sense on their color variations… Honestly I always imagined every Eel been really ugly… Since the most popular Eel is the electric Moray Eel and that one is super ugly!!! But meeting a couple Snowflake eels and now the Moray Eel I found that the myth of all eels been ugly is just…
Biological Description: Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract. Most frequently, hermit crabs use the shells of sea snails (although the shells of bivalves and scaphopods and even hollow pieces of wood and stone are used by some species). The tip of the hermit crab’s abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the columella of the snail shell. Most hermit crabs are nocturnal. Source: WikiPedia I am sure everybody has heard the expression that some people are hermits… being reclusive. We were super excited to find a “Steve” crab in the rock pools… On Sunday, we were prowling Sodwana Bay beach for more video Footage for our youtube channel, unfortunately the tide was still a little bit high and we really didn’t want to wait till the low tide so we scoured what little rock pools could be seen. It’s not as exciting as being in the water it’s self, but you can find a few cute and different creatures that cling to the rocks and corals instead of swimming with the big fish. Hermit Crabs are definitely the kind to cling to rocks and coral and really hate being disturbed… Just like a Hermit person! I really wish we could have picked up one that wasn’t afraid to come out of it’s shell, but maybe one day one of these scaredy crabs might just allow us to see it’s true beauty! On the Left hand side is an illustration of what the hermit crab looks like without a shell – Source: Mother Nature Network and on the left is a smaller crab taken by our GoPro. Both are hermit crabs, although they might be different kinds of Hermits they look similar to each 0ther, I am no expert in this matter… A few fun Facts about the “Steve” Crab: Anyone who has ever heard of a hermit crab most probably know this already… Unlike most crabs who have their own shells that shed and grow with them – the Hermit crab is designed to constantly scavenge for old shells as it gets older… Now we know who keeps on stealing the really cool and intact shells… This is something I really didn’t think existed – You get land hermit crabs and you get marine crabs… I know crabs stay close to water, but I always thought they were more like seals stay close to water to keep their skin moist and of course their main source of food is in the sea… But this is not the case both terrestrial and marine Hermit Crabs have gills and constantly need to keep their gills wet at all times – the only difference is terrestrial crabs have adapted to prolonged times out of water, whilst marine crabs can only last a few minutes out of water – Some hermit crab species are also kept as pets, but I would do my homework before getting one as a pet…. It’s a tough world for a crab – Hermit crabs have quite a tough life when it comes to choosing a home – Because they are constantly growing they constantly looking for a new house – much like a teenager, always looking for the next best thing – Some Hermit crabs will fight till the death to get that perfect home, whilst others will do the more civil thing and create chains waiting to get the right sized shell… A crab that is desperate for a new shell will often go pick on another crab – they will tap the other crabs shell until it comes out, once the crab is out the shell they will fight until one of them accepts defeat – this is kinda sad, they can loose limbs or even die from these encounters… At the end of the battle – the victorious crab gets to take over or keep the shell that was fought over… Now that I think about it – it’s kinda like having two neighbors who hate each other and finally battle it out for the prettiest girl on the block… The chain effect – Now this is a pleasant way to get what you want without the violence… One crab walks up to a shiny pretty shell he/she really wants, from a distance it looks to be the perfect size, unfortunately when it gets there – the shell is to big for it and will not do for it’s size… So it sits and waits… Hermit crabs will sit and guard that shell for up to eight hours if it has to – Mr Hermit decides he has nothing better to do so he sits close to the shell watching it… The next crab comes along seeing the same shell, but the shell is to big for this crab as well so it goes to wait in line holding Mr Crabs claw, this chain will stay unbroken for 8 hours, up to 20 crabs can for a single chain – eventually the crab they have all been waiting for – She is just the right size for the shell, without hesitation Mrs crab takes off her old shell and tries on the new shiny one – first inline is Mr crab – He takes off his old shell and puts Mrs crabs shell on and so the whole chain starts to exchange their shells each moving u to a bigger shell… This just proves that if Hermit crabs are not desperate for shells, they can work together in harmony to achieve all their goals together… Since most snails have a spiral shell (Hermits preferred shells)… Hermit crabs have adapted their soft bodies to be able to Spiral into the shell, clutching their tails around the inside of the shell… Although Hermit Crabs are very confident at fighting each other they are more like the hyenas and vultures of the sea… They scavenge the…
Whoohoo another amazing video added to our Youtube channel > GO SODWANA BAY!… This is a cool mashup of Sodwana Bay February 2020. This is only a really small part of all the exciting things we did this month… Unfortunately our song was to short and still busy tryna figure out the best way to mash songs together! Enjoy the Video Below… Hope you are as inspired as I am!!! Come visit Sodwana Bay! Watching this video and listening to this song really takes me back to my childhood… I guess at least 50% or more of us have a really fearful up bringing… We are literally taught to BE scared of the world… We are told never to go out at night alone, that we shouldn’t speak to strangers, we should never walk in the woods/forest/bushes, never approach a strange animal, don’t swim in lakes and ponds etc – etc. While most of these things are merited, I disagree with most of what my parents taught me in any case, I never did drugs, smoked or drank alcohol as a child, as an adult I keep drinking too a minimum… I am super grateful for the warnings against those dangers, but my parents also tried to teach me to be fearful of all the good things in the world, stepping out of bounds such as walking in bushes, just breaking away from society to be alone… As a child there use to be a type of forest behind most the neighborhoods we lived in. Trust me if there was something to find I found it… I loved it, it gave me incentive to walk my dogs each day and just find a quiet place far away from people… The thing I hated most was that my parents never approved so it was me and my best friend (my dog) little secret. I can relate so well to this song… I don’t claim to be brave, or recklessly stupid, I am well informed of the dangers in my environment. But just as this song may suggest, I am facing every fear head on. If Sodwana Bay has taught me anything it would be – Don’t be afraid of everything – Knowledge is not always power – If you respect nature it respects you – Just because something has the power to hurt you or kill you doesn’t mean that is it’s main goal – Don’t run from your fears rather take them head-on – Most times they more scared of you than you are of them it just depends on who folds first… Like I said before this song has great meaning to me… Don’t be afraid to break free from the curse of fear… Being brave always brings change – So break free of your fears and start LIVING!!!! Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.
Boaedon capensis, the Cape house snake, also known as the brown house snake, is a species of lamprophiid from Botswana, South Africa (from KwaZulu-Natal all the way through to the Western Cape), Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They are a non-venomous lamprophiid. This species was previously grouped in the genus Lamprophis but is regrouped with the genus Boaedon. I have always heard of brown house snakes, but never took the time to look them up and see what they look like. All I knew was they like living in peoples homes, are very tranquil, non-venomous and of course hence the name are brown snakes. But I always imagined the snake been a boring plain ugly brown color… So imagine my surprise to find out that they are not such ugly snakes and that have beautiful white markings on their face, almost like the Indian tribes…. We were cleaning up our yard and found this cute snake underneath a pile of junk under an old trailer, we obviously suspected there would be snakes around and under the trailer, hence the clean up (less place for the snakes to hide in)… We were always quite concerned about that area because unfortunately our dogs never back down from a fight, would rather not take a chance in finding a venomous snake that could potentially kill our dogs… I was really not expecting to find a small brown house snake underneath there. As I mentioned before it was much prettier than I expected, if the dogs weren’t so volatile to strange creatures I might’ve tried keeping it as a pet. Well at least this one did not have an encounter with the dogs and got to see another day, at least I hope nothing else caught it later… I will definitely not consider a brown House Snake ordinary after seeing this one… Their Appearance: Cape house snakes are usually dark brown on top, but the color varies greatly from almost black through brown to olive green. The stripes that stretch from the rostral scale through the eye to the back of the head are very strong, thick, and bold. This species may have a lateral stripe running down the flanks, often resembling the links of a chain. They also sometimes have lateral stripes running along either side of the spine. Linking lines between the lateral striping is not uncommon. These body markings tend to be a paler brown/cream in color on top of the often dark, chocolate-brown base tones. These markings normally fade two-thirds of the way down the body until only the base color remains, but there are exceptions to the rule. Individuals without pattern are often found in the wild. These individuals have the head markings but no other markings on top of an often pale-brown body. Like all house snakes, Boaedon capensis is very iridescent, their scales often shining with an oily sheen in certain lights. Some fun facts about this Snake, their habitat and size: Like most frogs, the female Brown house Snakes grow larger than the males – Males will only grow up to 61–76 cm and the Females can grow up to 120 cm. Most probably the one we found was still a juvenile, cause it was relatively small compared to these measurements…. Contrary to popular belief, humans very rarely will introduce Brown House snakes to their homes, instead these snakes will rather welcome themselves into your home and help keep your rodent problem at bay… Their favorite food is of course small rodents such as mice and rats and won’t mind eating a whole nest of mice/rats in one sitting. Although most people hate any kind of snake – I guess it’s in our human nature, since they did betray us on the garden of Eden- they an still be useful, if I have to choose between a non-venomous snake and rats that chew all your furniture and eat your food, I will definitely choose the snake that eats the mice/rats, also I doubt the snake will bite you for no reason like mice and rats do… Mature Brown House Snakes generally breed 1 or 2 times a year. These snakes are completely harmless, but don’t annoy them they might not like it and bite you… Depending on the person the snake bites, the poor snake might loose it’s life for human negligence… Don’t kill these snakes because you don’t feel like rehabilitating them, remember they are helping you get rid of your pests for FREE… So have a bit of respect for them! The Brown House Snake is the largest of it’s species – there are 7 different similar snakes which are classified under the same name. Like most reptiles they use the sun to warm up their bodies These snakes are not total savages, they at least kill their prey before consuming them, like most non-venomous snakes they are constrictors and will suffocate their prey before eating them, like a Python. These snakes to have teeth so be careful when handling them, you won’t die, but I can’t imagine it been a good experience been bitten by any snake Brown house snakes try act like possums in the face of death! For those who don’t know the possum way, they play dead in the face of prey… Some of their natural predators include owls and larger snakes Thanks for reading this post and hope you found this useful Info… Our factual sources for this article came from: Wikepedia and Animal Talk Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able…
