Greater Honeyguide | Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Updates, and Pangolin!

Category: Random, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs | Date: Nov 12 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

We have found spoor of the Nyarushanga Pack, a less-known pack in the West of the Conservancy which we don’t have a radio-collar for, so we rarely see them except during the denning season, but it’s good to know they’re still around.

We also have good news from a data-collection perspective: the missing piece of the GPS collar that we recovered from the poacher’s house has been handed in, and should hopefully be brought to our house today. We are hoping this is the piece with the data on it…It should have logged the movements of the collared dog, Sandy, which can help us get a sense of home range size and core areas for the Mapari pack.

A number of other interesting things have happened recently including Rueben finding the rarely-seen Pangolin between our house and his. This attracted a small crowd because this animal is so rarely seen. No-one present had seen one before.

It curls up in a scaly ball when threatened:

And can easily be picked up….even the local policeman dropped by for the occasion:

But it got tired of pretending to be scared of us and unfurled to wander away:

Then later that day when we were looking for the Bedford Pack, I met the legendary Greater Honey-Guide, a famous bird for its unique and wonderful behaviour. It evolved a special mutualistic relationship with people, in which, when it finds wild honey, it will come and find a human and attract his or her attention. Then it will lead you to the honey so you can smoke out the bees, on the understanding that you will share some of the honey (and bee larvae) with the Honey-Guide. Well, the one I met was trying to lead me to some honey, but sadly we were on other business and I wasn’t able to follow it! Here is a picture of the Honey-Guide who was inviting me to a possible feast.

On the way home, just a couple of hundred metres from our house, we found the fresh drag marks of a leopard pulling away an impala it had killed. We followed them a short distance to find a mostly uneaten impala ewe with its unborn foetus lying cold against a rock nearby. By the next day, both were entirely eaten. Below is Rueben following the drag marks.