Saharan Sand Snake

On November 20, 2016November 12, 2023 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Reptiles4 Comments

This past weekend we decided to wander along one of our usual routes, and I was treated to an unusual spotting – a sand snake! As we were walking, we passed a large dark boulder where I often spot agama lizards. I was just about to mention this to my friend when I looked down at the rock I was about to step on, suddenly realized that is what not a branch laying across it, and quickly had to swing around to avoid stomping on a snake. Eeek! I’m not completely comfortable with snakes apparently. But he was beautiful! A gorgeous golden-brown color with dark brown patterns. I wish I could share a picture of him, but I guess he was just as scared as me because he slithered away and hid beneath a rock.

We have spotted these sand snakes before, maybe three or four other times, in wadis near Dahab. The first time we saw one, in 2010, it was my husband who almost stepped on the snake. That time though, the snake stayed still long enough for us to take a few photos. And we (thought!) were able to identify it as a Schokari Sand Racer (Psammophis schokari), but years later (in 2023) with the help of expert Sherif Baha El Din, it has been IDed as a Saharan Sand Snake (Psammophis aegyptius).

These snakes are long and slender; they can grow to a length of about 1.5 meters. The patterns and colors of Schokari Sand Racers and Saharan Sand Snakes can vary a lot, ranging from a light sandy-gray with pale patterns to strong, dark contrasting colors.

[UPDATE] Since writing this post, I’ve encountered more Sand Snakes and, not being as startled, was able to get some new pics.

Schokari Sand Racers live in sandy and rocky deserts, prefer places with good vegetation, and are most common in coastal areas, whereas Saharan Sand Snakes are found in places with little or no vegetation. During times of bird migration, these snakes might be found on nearby trees and bushes. Here they wait to feed on the small songbirds that are flying through.

Schokari Sand Racers are found throughout the Sinai peninsula and are actually one of the most common snakes in Egypt. Saharan Sand Snakes are found only in South Sinai, not the north.

Notice the dark stripe that runs from the snout, past the eyes, to the back of the head.

And there’s a reason they’re called Sand Racers – they can reach speeds up to 16 kph when chasing prey! The snakes typically eat lizards, small birds, rodents, and other snakes. After grabbing their prey, they release a venom that immobilizes the animal before swallowing them head first. Despite being venomous, Schokari Sand Racers are generally not a threat to humans as their main defense is their speed. I’m grateful for that.

Have you come across snakes during any of your wadi wanders? How did you – or how would you – feel about such an encounter?

References:

Baha El-Din, Sherif. (2006). A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Schokari sand racer (Psammophis schokari) on ARKive.org

Arghel

On November 13, 2016November 13, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Plants2 Comments

This is one of my favorite times of year to wander through the wadis of Sinai. For many reasons. Because of recent rains, the wadis are bursting with tiny green baby plants right now. I always enjoy stopping to discover what plants come up first after the rains, and what they look like when they’re so young. Fascinating! For me. 🙂 Another reason I love this time of year is that the arghel plants are in bloom – and they give off such a delightful fragrance!

Some wadis, like Wadi Kid, are lined with arghel plants (Solenostemma arghel), called harjal in Arabic. If you are lucky enough to walk through one of these wadis in November, it will be a joy for your senses! Often you will smell the flowers before you turn a corner and see the plant.

Harjal is an evergreen shrub in the dogbane family. The plants grow up to 1 meter high and 10 meters in diameter. They live in gravelly, sandy, and rocky soils usually at the edge of wadi beds. Here’s a picture of a large harjal plant growing near Wadi Connection in Dahab:

The leaves are greyish-green and their white flowers grow in bunches. The fruits are purplish-green, oval shaped, and can grow up to 5 cm in length.

When they are ripe, they turn yellow and dry to a light brown. They split open, releasing dozens of tufted seeds that are blown by the wind.

Bedouin in Sinai use this plant for medical reasons, as do many people throughout Egypt. Sadly, this plant is endangered due to over-collection for sale at herb shops dealing in medicinal herbs. Locally, the stem and leaves are used to treat a variety of ailments – infected sores and cuts, coughs and colic.

I’m not the only one attracted to these fragrant blooms! Butterflies, bees, and other pollinators are drawn to the flowers’ sweet nectar. In the picture below you can see two orange Painted Lady butterflies – the species I see most often on the harjal flowers – and a Brown-veined White butterfly.

wadi-gnai_nov12_22 — Painted Lady Butterfly (*Vanessa cardui*)

Striped Hawkmoth

On November 6, 2016March 14, 2023 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods9 Comments

I promised – to those of you follow on Facebook – that my next post would be about this magnificent critter that I found on a basil plant in my garden –

– as he was indeed the inspiration for getting back to work on this blog, and so today is all about…hawkmoths!

Unfortunately, I do not know – yet! – exactly who this bright green caterpillar is, but I do know that he (or she) is in the Sphingidae family of moths. Moths in this family are commonly called hawkmoths, sphinx moths, or hornworms. [Update: A year after I wrote this post, I was able to rear one of these caterpillars indoors; I believe it’s a Convolvulus Hawkmoth.]

There are over 1,450 species of Sphingidae moths. The larvae, or caterpillars, of hawkmoths are hairless and have a “horn” on the posterior end.

Striped Hawkmoth (Hyles livornica)

And while I do not know which caterpillar was munching on my basil plant, I do know who was bending over backwards to eat the tips of desert lavender. That is a larva of the Striped Hawkmoth, Hyles livornica.

It was early spring 2013 and we had had a wet winter in Dahab. There had even been a hail storm in November. So the desert plants were flourishing in the wadis!

On one early morning wander, we came across an area lush with fresh green asphodel, lavender, and sorrel. And crawling across the sandy wadi were the most amazing caterpillars I had seen in Sinai! Dozens of them. Some of the largest were as long and thick as my index finger. They were happily munching on all the nearby herbs.

Like all caterpillars, these Striped Hawkmoth larvae go through several stages of development, or instars, and their colors and patterns can change quite dramatically at each stage.

Hawkmoth caterpillars will burrow into the soil or gravel or hide among the rocks to pupate and I have never seen that stage of development. But about a month after we saw the caterpillars, we discovered the adult Striped Hawkmoths. They were busy feeding on the dhafrah (Iphiona scabra) flowers.

Sphingidae moths are known for their rapid flight and ability to hover in midair while they feed. They use their long proboscis (mouth parts) to reach the nectar in the flowers. Male moths are typically smaller than females. Both are beige with white stripes. Their hindwings, not seen when the wings are at rest, are pink and edged with black and white.

a Striped Hawkmoth, attracted to the light in the tent during a spring safari

Dahab was blessed recently with several good rainstorms and young desert plants are already poking their heads through the sand. Let’s hope the plants start to thrive again and that we have beautiful green wadis to wander through this coming spring. The butterflies and moths would be happy with that, too!

References:

Striped hawkmoth ~ ARKive

Hyles livornica ~ Moth and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa

Hyles livornica ~ Wikipedia

Violet Dropwing Dragonfly

On June 26, 2016June 26, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods1 Comment

Being some of the largest insects you’ll come across as you wander through the wadis, dragonflies are often spotted. There is not a lot of easily-available information about dragonflies in Egypt, at least not in English. One report from 1980 claims that at least 52 species of dragonflies occur in Egypt. And, like for other flora and fauna, Sinai boasts the most exceptional species.

Dropwing dragonflies, those in the Trithemis genus, are named for their habit of lowering their wings upon landing.

This beauty is a female Violet Dropwing (Trithemis annulata). The males of the species appear purple or violet, hence the name, due to a powdery blue substance on top of a bright red body. The males also have red veins in their wings. The females have a yellow-brown body and no red in their wings. Both have a yellow- or amber-colored patch at the base of the hindwing.

The female Violet Dropwings are the dragonflies that I spot most often, both in my desert garden and out in the wadis. As far as I know, I’ve never seen a male. Like all dragonflies, their life cycle begins when eggs are laid in water, meaning you are most likely to spot them near fresh, still water. Wadi G’Nai is often buzzing with these dragonflies!

Dragonflies have two sets of wings that they use to fly upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, and side to side. They can also hover! And see those dark cells in the wings that are circled in the photo above? They are called pterostigmata. They help form a thicker, heavier section of the wing. This helps stop vibrations and allows the dragonflies to glide. Amazing, right?

I have always loved dragonflies. For their size. For their colors. For their flight. And now I also love them because they visit my desert garden and strike poses on my aloe plants. And they sit still long enough for me to get my camera and take some pics. If you’ve got your own photos of dragonflies in Egypt, consider joining the Biodiversity in Egypt or the Wildlife of the Sinai Peninsula mission on Project Noah. Let’s see how many different species we can document!

References:

Notes on dragonflies in Egypt

Violet Dropwing ~ ARKive

Caper Bush ~ Part II

On June 6, 2016May 18, 2021 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Plants4 Comments

In Part I in my series on caper bushes, we learned what these plants look like, where to find them, how they grow, and why they make good additions to desert gardens. Today, I’ll share how to prepare the plant so you can savor their unique flavor.

You may already be familiar with capers, as they are a common ingredient used in Mediterranean cuisine and are available commercially in many places around the world. These are the flower buds of caper bushes, specifically Capparis spinosa. (Although C. sinaica, which also grows here in Sinai can be used, as well.)

The buds are picked when small and then salted and/or pickled. They are used in salads, pastas, meat dishes, sauces, and are popular in salmon and other fish dishes.

Before the caper bush in my garden was big enough to supply enough flower buds for pickling – and even now as I prefer to leave our buds to grow into flowers and fruit – we would forage for the buds as we wandered through wadis. At the right time and place, it doesn’t take long to collect a handful of flower buds. We pick a variety of sizes, but try to keep them on the smaller side.

Caper flower buds foraged from a wadi near Dahab.

Once you’ve collected the flower buds, put them in a jar, fill with water, and cover with a cloth. Let the buds soak for 3 – 7 days, changing the water every day (or every other day). The buds will turn from a bright green color to a more olive color. They will also start to give off a strong smell and white crystals or film may appear. This is all normal. The buds are releasing their mustard oil and their not-so-nice flavor.

At the end of the week, the capers should be giving off less of an odor and are ready to be pickled. You can use a vinegar brine or, even simpler, a lacto-fermentation method which just involves salt water. That’s what I do. I mix 220 mL of water with 1 tablespoon of salt. (Or multiples of that when I need more water.) Put the caper buds in a clean, sterile jar and pour the salt water over them, making sure they are all covered. Leave them for 3-4 days and then put them in your fridge; they will last a long time.

Pickled flower buds – and one fruit – ready to be eaten.

Pickled flower buds are not part of the Bedouin culinary tradition, but pickled fruits are! Forage for fruit on the bushes in the wadi or collect them from your garden. You want to pick them when they are still green, not yet ripe. I generally pick them when they are between 5 – 8 cm long.

The first harvest of the season from my garden caper bush.

You can follow the same method for pickling as described above for the flower buds. The fruits definitely need 7 days in water before they are pickled and give off a much stronger odor than the buds. The pickled fruit are called caper berries in English.

Fruits need to soak for 7 days before pickling.

This is my first year to do so, but you can also pickle the leaves of the caper bush following the same procedure.

Bedouin friends have recommended cutting shallow slashes into the fruit before they are pickled. This allows more of their flavor to be released into the water. Bedouin will then use a few spoons of this zesty liquid to spice up their lentil and rice meals.

We like to eat the pickled caper fruits smashed up in white cheese, which we then scoop up with local flat bread. Delicious! I am looking forward to experimenting with the pickled caper leaves – as a side salad, with deviled eggs, with cheese, with fish. And the flower buds we use in typical Mediterranean fashion, usually on pastas and pizzas.

The caper fruit can also be eaten fresh, when it is red and fully ripe. As I mentioned in my first post about capers, you have to beat the ants to it! Pick the red fruit just as it’s ready to split. If you catch them before they split, open the fruit and use your teeth to scrape the flesh and seeds off of the hard skin. Whether or not to chew the mustard-flavored seeds is up to you. The Bedouin children, who have eaten plenty of fruit from my garden, warn me never to chew the seeds, as they will give you diarrhea. But I’ve heard from other people who chew the seeds and do not suffer from any intestinal upset. I’ve tried the fruit fresh but did not chew the seeds. They taste okay, but I prefer them pickled!

Besides being beautiful and delicious, caper plants are also used medicinally by the Bedouin. (Amazing plant, right?) A poultice made from the crushed leaves is used to treat rheumatism, joint aches, headaches, and toothaches. Inhaling the vapor made when boiling ground dried leaves is said to treat head colds. I have used a poultice to treat joint aches and I can testify that the crushed leaves really do heat up, much better than creams from the pharmacy.

Okay, enough.

Have I convinced you to grow a caper bush in your garden yet? 😉

Green Lynx Spider

On June 1, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods5 Comments

And another critter who occasionally calls my caper bush home – the Green Lynx Spider (Peucetia arabica)!

These spiders are bright green, often with white and red markings on the body. The legs are covered in large bristles, which most likely helps them catch and keep hold of their prey. They have keen eyesight and a unique arrangements of their 8 eyes: six of them are arranged in a hexagonal pattern and two smaller eyes are below and in front of these.

They are ambush hunters and do not use webs. Instead, they live on the plants and wait, hidden by their camouflage, for their prey and then attack.

Green Lynx Spiders eat a variety of insects – flies, bees, wasps, and butterflies.

As you can see, they often eat pollinators, so I was not always happy to have these spiders in my garden, where they were content to live on a number of the local plants, as well as my pepper and basil plants. If you look closely as you wander through the wadis, you might spot them on Iphiona plants or Cleome herbs (samwa). Often, it will be the spider’s prey that you spot first. Or an egg sac.

Each of their egg sacs can contain hundreds of eggs that hatch into cute little spiderlings.

Like all spiders, the Green Lynx has an exoskeleton that, although flexible, does not grow. As the spiders get bigger, they must grow a new exoskeleton and shed, or molt, the old one. The old skin gets left behind, like the one shown below.

There is not a lot of information about this species of spider available on the Internet, at least not in English. So, I couldn’t find out more about this last photo – a female Green Lynx Spider apparently eating her mate!

Have you spotted this spider on your wadi wanderings?

Large Salmon Arab Butterfly

On May 31, 2016May 31, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods1 Comment

Of the nearly 19,000 butterfly species in the world, only 63 occur in Egypt. And this beauty – a Large Salmon Arab (Colotis fausta) – has been fluttering about my garden lately!

We are lucky here in South Sinai, as the mountainous region is one of the hotspots of butterfly diversity in Egypt, home to 2/3 of the butterflies found in Egypt. The Salmon Arab is a member of the Pieridae family of butterflies, or Whites, as they are commonly called. Like most butterflies, they go through a 4-stage metamorphosis: egg, larva (caterpillar), pupa (chrysalis), and adult. The eggs are laid on and the caterpillar feed on the leaves of caper bushes (Capparis sp.), which is why I find these butterflies in my garden and where you’ll usually spot them in the wadis. The caterpillars are light green, hairy, and have a pale-colored stripe through their body.

The larva continue to eat, grow, and molt (shed their skins) until they are ready to form their chrysalis (a hard skin) and start to pupate. The chrysalis is attached, usually to a leaf, by silk threads.

After about a week, the adult butterfly emerges.

The upperside of the wings are a salmon-pink to an orange-yellow color and the forewings have dark scales and black spots along the edges. In the dry season, they are smaller and lighter-colored. You can find these butterflies in flight between April and November.

As a curious nature-lover as well as a teacher, I will occasionally raise caterpillars indoors to learn more about them. Check out the proboscis (sucking mouth part) on the newly-emerged butterfly below!

Although the weather is getting a bit too hot to be wandering through wadis these days, you might just spot these butterflies near the caper bushes around town!

References:

Butterflies of Egypt: Atlas, Red Data Listing, & Conservation

Francis Gilbert & Samy Zalat

PDF version of the book is FREE to download here.

Black Cone-headed Grasshopper

On May 18, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Arthropods5 Comments

Unlike the Egyptian Flower Mantis, the Black Cone-headed Grasshopper (Poekilocerus bufonius), with its large black body and slow movement, is easy to spot! Especially when they are resting on the rocks.

But these grasshoppers feed on plants in the milkweed family, which produce toxic chemicals. Ingesting these plants make the grasshoppers poisonous and distasteful to predators. When they are attacked, Black Cone-headed Grasshoppers spray a toxic fluid in defense. In Arabic, they are called zagat, meaning “the one who sprays toxins onto girls’ faces”.

You’ll most often find these grasshoppers on Pergularia tomentosa plants. Many Bedouin, before sitting down near one of these plants, will throw stones at the bush to scare off any grasshoppers. Sometimes these plants will be home to many grasshoppers. How many can you count in the picture below?

I’ve also spotted Black Cone-headed Grasshoppers on ajram (Anabasis sp.), harjal (Solenostemma arghel), reseda (Reseda sp.), broom (Retama raetam) and other plants.

The adults that I’ve seen have been between 6 – 10 cm in length. They are black or dark-colored, sometimes with yellow spots. I’ve noticed orange underwings on several.

Females are substantially larger the males, as you can see in the photo of the mating pair below.

As is typical of this order of insects (Orthoptera), the grasshoppers go through incomplete metamorphosis. The young nymphs resemble the adults but have no wings and can have extremely different colors. Look at these beautiful yellow ones!

As they age, they will shed their exoskeletons several times, growing wings until their final molt into a mature adult with fully-developed wings.

I’ve spotted Black Cone-headed Grasshoppers from late fall through spring in many of the wadis around Dahab, as well as higher up near Wadi Arada (on the way to St. Katherine’s). They are one of the first critters we came across on our early wadi wanderings and I always enjoy seeing them. And photographing them! They stay so still for so long, making excellent models. 🙂

References:

Aly, D. & Khalil, R. (2011). Wildlife in South Sinai. Cairo.Funded by the E.U. in cooperation with G.O.S.S.

Zalat, S. & Gilbert, F. (2008). Gardens of a Sacred Landscape: Bedouin Heritage and Natural History in the High Mountains of Sinai. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Egyptian Red Fox

On May 14, 2016February 24, 2022 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Mammals2 Comments

The Egyptian Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes aegyptiacus) is the largest fox in Egypt and one of three species of fox occurring in Sinai. I’ve never spotted a fox while wandering through wadis [UPDATE: I have now! See the extra pics below.], but over the years I’ve spotted several from moving vehicles. Always magical to see! But difficult to capture with a camera. (Especially if you’re the one driving.) One night, though, we were treated to a visit by a fox – a fox intent on stealing some fish!

We had driven up one of the wadis behind Dahab with Eid, a Bedouin friend, who had promised to make us a traditional meal cooked over a campfire. (You can read more about the watermelon fettah here. It was delicious!) As the men were preparing the food, this fox came inching closer and closer, drawn by the scent of fish. Eid put the fish on a small raised platform to keep it away from the fox but that didn’t deter it.

The fox also didn’t seem bothered by the flash from my camera. He was persistent, but the fox never did get the fish and was eventually shooed away by Eid’s young son.

The Egyptian Red Fox lives elsewhere in Egypt and only relatively recently did they expand into South Sinai, most likely related to the increasing spread of human activity. These foxes are not foxes of true deserts. They inhabit vegetated wadis, farmland, gardens, and desert margins. We spotted this Red Fox several years ago, when tourism in Dahab was booming and this wadi was a popular destination for tourists to enjoy a desert dinner. Our Bedouin friend said this helped explain why the fox was around, feeding on leftovers, and not so scared of humans.

The foxes are nocturnal and eat insects, small rodents, fish, fruit, and vegetables. In Ras Mohamed, they are known to dig for crabs.

Although they are commonly called Red Foxes, this subspecies is not red, but more of a ruddy grey-brown. They have large ears and the hair on the back of the ears is black. Their tails are bushy and white-tipped and they have a darker-colored streak that runs from their muzzle to their eyes. Facial markings are a distinguishing feature among foxes and so can help identify the species. I am no expert, of course, and at first had thought this was a Rüppell’s Sand Fox, another species found in Sinai, but I have learned that the Sand Foxes have very distinctive black marks under their eyes. Tail color and proportion is another distinguishing feature; the Blanford’s Fox, also found here, has the longest tail of Egyptian foxes and it’s dark-tipped.

If you’re like me, though, you’ll be delighted to spot a fox in South Sinai, no matter what the species!

UPDATE: We encountered a beautiful fox in Wadi Um Ma in January 2018. We were able to watch him from a distance for several minutes before we went our separate ways.

References:

Hoath, Richard. (2003). A Field Guide to the Mammals of Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Ornate Spiny-tailed Lizard

On May 8, 2016 By Bernadette SimpsonIn Reptiles2 Comments

It was tough deciding which cool creature I should feature first, but recent discussions on Project Noah had me thinking about Dhabb lizards, so they won!

Ornate Spiny-tailed Lizards (Uromastyx ornata), also called Dhabb Lizards, are one of the larger animals you’ll come across in the wadis of South Sinai, their bodies growing up to 20 cm in length. Dhabb lizards like to bask in the hot desert sun. Males choose a highly visible position to declare their territory to other Dhabbs and to be on the lookout for intruders. If you’re on the lookout while hiking, you can sometimes spot these lizards ahead of you on the rocky sides of the wadis.

If you proceed slowly and quietly, the lizards will sometimes let you approach and get a closer look.

But often, when they hear you coming, the lizards scramble on their short, powerful legs into a rocky crevice and all you see is their very distinctive spiny tail.

Male Dhabbs, like those pictured above, have blue heads and greenish blue backs with bands of black-edged yellow spots. The female and juvenile lizards sport a similar pattern but in reds, browns, and greys. Their coloration overall, however, can vary quite a bit depending on age, sex, and breeding condition.

Ornate Dhabb lizards are active during the day and they are most active at midday during the hottest months of the year. They are herbivorous, munching mainly on the leaves, seeds, and flowers of desert plants. Occasionally, they might feed on invertebrates like insects and spiders.

A few years ago, while hiking one of our regular routes, my husband and I came across a Dhabb lizard feeding on the lush desert plants underneath an acacia tree. (There had been a bit of winter rain so the wadis were quite green with vegetation. And Dhabbs are strongly associated with acacias.) The Dhabb did not seem bothered by our presence and carried on eating as I sat on a nearby rock with my camera . What a treat it was to be able to watch!

Ornate Spiny-tailed Lizards are listed as a species of Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, the Red List justifies this classification, recognizing that the lizard has gone locally extinct in parts of Egypt and Israel but continues to thrive as a species in Saudi Arabia. The lizards are heavily collected by animal traders despite the fact that exporting this species is illegal in Egypt. In Sinai, Dhabb lizards are also threatened by loss of habitat due to tourist activities, removal of acacia trees for charcoal making, quarrying, and general development.

So, please remember, when visiting Sinai’s spectacular deserts:

Take nothing but pictures,

Leave nothing but footprints,

Kill nothing but time.

References:

Wilms, T. & Sindaco, R. 2012. Uromastyx ornata. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2012:e.T198538A2531743.http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2012.RLTS.T198538A2531743.en. Downloaded on 08 May 2016.

Baha El-Din, Sherif. (2006). A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Ornate spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastyx ornata) on Arkive.org

Wandering through Wadis

Tag: Dahab

Saharan Sand Snake

Arghel

Striped Hawkmoth

Violet Dropwing Dragonfly

Caper Bush ~ Part II

Green Lynx Spider

Large Salmon Arab Butterfly

Black Cone-headed Grasshopper

Egyptian Red Fox

Ornate Spiny-tailed Lizard

Take nothing but pictures,

Leave nothing but footprints,

Kill nothing but time.