Matetsi Morning Walk

Matetsi Morning Walk with Tracker Kenias Ncube and the little things that matter - Our guests had praised Kenias the tracker over for spotting all the little things during our game drives until this mid-morning walk around the KuduAlley/ Shumba South Areas. We started off with stocking a jenny of giraffe, saw some zebra and the magnificent Sable antelope until Kenias changed his attention suddenly. Guests and Guide were surprised why this big and bald gentleman suddenly knelt down and started blowing the wind on the ground. He took a stick and shoved it into a small shaft on the sand and came out with a tiny spider looking creature. I realised it was an ant - lion but our guests had started backing off. On realizing that I was sharing the experience with Kenias, they found the guts to come back and watch. We assured them that this was just a harmless insect undergoing a change from egg and now larval stage to finally an imago. They wanted to know how it fed on its little food that consists of ants and flies and we used the magnifying glass to show them the little pincers with little holes that they use to suck out plasma from the carcass.

Hard to believe that some insects have such a long metamorphosis! After having seen all the large animals and discussed about the ecology of Matetsi, our guests were amazed to see this ant lion. The questions were why exactly did this almost sub-terranean creature attain the name of such a big animal as lion. We demonstrated the way how it stocks its prey by using the v-shaped trap on the sand and creating a tremor which draws the food in before it can consume it. Its hunting behaviour is wholly predatory like that of the lion.

There were so amazed that the larval stage of the ant-lion lasted for above 3 year before they could fly off as the Lace wing insect.

Posted: Matetsi by Peter Gava, Date: 28 November 2007