Now let's see what I got for you today. I have two posts in one here.
We took a stroll on a lovely hot day near some water, and I stumbled upon something special and unusual. Not every day that we see these, and I gladly took some photos of them.
The southern rock agama or southern African rock agama (Agama atra) is a species of lizard from the family Agamidae that occurs in Southern Africa in Zambia, South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana. It lives in small colonies on rocky outcrops, and the males are very conspicuous for their bright blue heads.
An. atra has some ability to change colour, although not to the same extent as chameleons, of which the Agamidae are a sister group. When a male agama in breeding colouration is approached by a potential predator, it will lie flat against a rock and lose the intense breeding colours in favour of more cryptic colouration. A dominant male usually occupies a high point in the area and performs a pushup display and head nodding to warn off intruders.
And you can see his wife above, they looked at me suspiciously, as they have never seen this guy with the strange big eye (lens) in his hands before.
There was another one.
And this one was also very inquisitive.
Finally, I bid the lady goodbye :)
Now for something else of the Pentatomidae family here at home. We have two granadilla fences at the front of our house.
Some movement on a developing granadilla fruit caught my eye. It was a tiny bug with some beautiful colors on its back. So, I gently picked it off the fruit and handed it to my wife to have a look, but it flew down to the floor. So, I picked it up and put it back in the fence.
As soon as I put it back, it disappeared into the leaves of the fence.
So lovely to see the little live things in nature and all of them were intricately designed by the Creator to perform a purpose in the ecosystem. One can only wonder at their thoughts when they see a human being. If we think that they are beautiful, then I don't think that their thoughts are the same as they are usually only thinking about survival. Mankind has become a big danger to them, and I bet that any pet shop owner would love to have the lizards in cages up for sale. We can pride ourselves on that we have managed to kill off almost all of the wild roaming elephants and antelopes and even the lions are being captured and put in cages for hunters to come and shoot. At times I am ashamed to belong to the same human species.
Such is life.
I hope you have enjoyed the picture stories.
Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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