A Chameleon (and egg tarts) in Portugal

Chamaeleo chamaeleon

I have always wanted to see a Common Chameleon (Chamaeleo chamaeleon). Only once having visited a place within the range where they might have been found in the past (Crete) that is not surprising. So this one found in southern Portugal between a golf course and a tidal lagoon during a Naturetrek* trip earlier this month was a delight.

The chameleons live in low pine trees on sandy soil along the southern coast of Portugal and Spain. The breeding season comes much later in the year. Then males take to the ground in order  to search for females which they will guard. Eggs are laid in soft sandy soil. Growth of the young is rapid.

Chameleons in general are interesting in that they have widely different lifespans. Some are effectively an ‘annual’, all the preceding generation dying before their eggs have hatched. At the other extreme, some species live for ten or more years. The Common Chameleon is at the low end of the range: 2-3 years.

The Common Chameleon occurs along the coastal region of North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey and then down the eastern side of the Red Sea. To those of us of a certain age, tales of chameleons in North Africa were brought back by those who had served in the British Eighth and First Armies or in RAF bases in Egypt. The swivelling eyes, the tongue, the colour changes and their deliberate movement along branches were recounted to the extent that it seemed the whole population knew of chameleons and their habits. For some soldiers encounters with wildlife (sometimes, like jerboas and fennec foxes—and chameleons—reared and kept as pets) were their only experiences of war shared with their families. Herpetologists on both sides were known to have studied the animals encountered in North Africa and I dare say that tales of the chameleons also reached the children in Germany.

Recently, it has been argued that the chameleon was introduced into southern Spain and Portugal but with widely differing dates. The distribution map in IUCN’s Red List shows that part of the range as such. I am skeptical. After all the ranges of other species of reptile span the Straits of Gibraltar.

A chameleon and Portuguese Egg Tarts—who could want for more?

*Naturetrek’s Spring in Southern Portugal brilliantly led by Lara Broom (who knows how to spot a chameleon) and Glyn Evans.

Great Barbet Nesting in Hong Kong

AJP spotted Great Barbets (Psilopogon virens) in the New Territories of Hong Kong last week. They are uncommon residents, living in mature secondary broadleaf forests. They are also difficult to spot in the canopy. He later spotted a nest hole, high in a tree.

The Great Barbet is now only to be found in the New Territories but Herklots in his Hong Kong Birds of 1953 noted that in the early decades of the 20th century they were on Hong Kong island, even nesting in the Botanic Gardens in 1929. Herklots wrote:

I have never seen an adult near the nest; my collectors say that the adult bird comes quickly with a dash, i the usual manner with much noise, to feed its young, stays a few seconds and then dashes away in its normal undulating flight.

You can see the speed at which the adults leave and enter the nest in the short video.

Herklots also noted that the birds were often heard, with the call of the male ‘going on and on’, but seldom seen. ‘This bird never comes to the ground and spends its life in the dense fung shui woods of the valleys’. He regarded the population as a small number of year-round residents augmented by summer visitors.

One of Hong Kong's most impressive birds.

Elke Zimmermann 1958-2019. Herpetologist and Primatologist

Elke Zimmermann
from here

A few weeks ago while working on a different topic I came across the sad news that Elke Zimmermann had died in 2019 at the age of 61. Her book, Breeding Terrarium Animals, the English-language version of which appeared in 1986, drew on the major and then novel  advances being made in Germany on the breeding of amphibians and reptiles. Elke and her father Helmut (b 1926), an architect in Stuttgart, were very much part of the group of German herpetologists at the forefront of breeding tropical frogs and toads. The book was highly influential across the English-speaking world since it was part of a new wave of herpetology—the successful and reliable breeding of amphibians and reptiles in captivity—that was spreading across the world in the 1970s and 80s. The German-language version, Das Zuchten von Terrarienteren, was published in 1983 when Elke was 25. The publisher’s blurb, as this translation shows, makes the point about that new wave:

The breeding of amphibians and reptiles was considered difficult for a long time; almost only accidental breedings were known. Only in recent years has there been increased effort not only to keep these animals in captivity for as long as possible, but also to breed them. In this book, the author describes the reproduction and breeding of more than 300 species of amphibians and reptiles, with a large proportion of the animal species discussed in more detail being bred in the Zimmermann terrariums…

I have not seen the German edition of the book, published in 1983 when Elke Zimmermann was 25,  but the English-language version, published by the notorious Herbert Axelrod (1927-2017) under his TFH company, was said to contain new material as well more photographs, i.e  in the TFH house style.

Father, Helmut, and daughter, Elke, kept an array of animals at home. She became particularly interested in the vocal communication of dart frogs during their complex breeding behaviour. She continued through university and developed her interest in this field, particularly in primates. She went on to work extensively in Madagascar, particularly on the small lemurs, where her father was a leading light in conservation, but had wide interests and established breeding colonies of several species back in Germany, thereby combining field and laboratory studies

From 1996 until her death Elke Zimmermann was Professor in the Institute of Zoology in the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover.

To commemorate her life colleagues in primatology contributed to a special issue of International Journal of Primatology which covered her main interests. That volume also offers a glimpse of her early life (references omitted): 

Encouraged by her father, Elke became interested in zoology very early in life. She published her first article when she was 16 years old on an inventory of reptiles, which she had observed during an excursion with her family in Southern Spain. Her first article on primates followed 2 years later, in which, together with her father, she assembled recommendations for the housing of lorises (Nycticebus spp.), squirrel monkeys (Saimiri spp.), and talapoin monkeys (Miopithecus spp. At that time, all these species were housed in her family’s house and garden. She continued to publish on the biology of primates, amphibians, and reptiles while she studied biology at the University of Hohenheim. Although she wrote her dissertation on the neurobiological basis of acoustic communication in frogs and regularly published on amphibians until 1994, primates became her main interest after her PhD and during her career. She was interested in the evolution of primates, but in contrast to most researchers who focused on haplorrhine primates, Elke investigated the roots of the primate order and specialized on strepsirrhine primates…

I only realised years after the event  that in 2003 we had stayed in the accommodation Elke and her colleagues used at Ampijoroa in Madagascar. Then, there was no tourist accommodation (there is now) serving the Ankarafantsika National Park and groups picked up camping equipment at Mahajanga before driving the 70-odd miles to Ampijoroa. When it was discovered that two double rooms at the field station were unoccupied, the two oldest couples were allocated those. Initially thankful for being war babies, we had two uncomfortable nights, not helped by the swarms of mosquitos that danced above the open drains which ran round the entire block. Ampijoroa is an amazing site. A plethora of lemurs, other mammals, birds and reptiles was around every corner. But one species in particular is relevant to this discussion.

One evening on a walk on the lake side of the field station we had definite sightings of a species of mouse lemur only described a few years earlier.  It was the Golden-brown Mouse Lemur, Microcebus ravelobensis, named for Lake Ravelobe at Ampijoroa. Elke Zimmermann was first author of paper which described and named the new species in 1998. Notices warning of crocodiles in Lake Ravelobe have to be taken very seriously. Before our visit the local bird guide had been killed by the Nile Crocodiles found there—a fact not mentioned by the tour companies these days. When we walked along the shore, we saw the screens in the water behind which the local women could still wash the clothes. The danger was so great, we were told, even the men had started to do the washing.

While Elke Zimmermann is remembered by her scientific colleagues for her more recent research on primates, herpetologists will remember her earlier studies on, and breeding of, amphibians and reptiles with fondness and great admiration.

Golden-brown Mouse Lemur
From a low-resolution video
Ampijoroa, 7 November 2003

Radespiel U, Scheumann M, Schmidtke D. 2019. Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Elke Zimmermann. International Journal of Primatology 40, 589–591 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-019-00108-8

Radespiel U, Scheumann M. 2022.  Introduction to the special Issue celebrating the life and work of Elke Zimmermann. International Journal of Primatology 43, 539- 558 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-022-00307-w

Zimmermann, E. 1983. Das Züchten von Terrarientieren. Stuttgart : Franckh. Kosmos Verlag

Zimmermann, E. 1986. Breeding Terrarium Animals. Neptune, New Jersey: TFH Publications.

Zimmermann, E., Cepok, S., Rakotoarison, N., Zietemann, V., & Radespiel, U. (1998). Sympatric mouse lemurs in north-west Madagascar: A new rufous mouse lemur species (Microcebus ravelobensis). Folia Primatologica, 69(2), 106–114. https://doi.org/10.1159/000021571