natural habitats.

[HadesDragons]

Some more photos that I don't think I've put on before. You'll have to excuse the lack of herps in most of them - we found a few (and quite a few hatched droppings/eggs/shed snake skins as evidence that they were living there out of sight), but were there for other reasons. They should give an idea as to the type of terrain, colours etc.

It's hard to convey the sense of scale in a lot of these photos, as well as the dramatic temperature changes in the desert regions (not the Central American ones!) We were travelling fast and light in the desert so didn't have tents or any "luxuries" like that - in the evening we'd literally be huddled around a fire in fleeces, then by mid-morning the sun would be up and we'd just be in shorts. Most inhabitants of these types of area are a lot hardier and more cold-tolerant than people give them credit for.



First the ones where you don't tend to find permanent life - generally open, barren sandy areas, miles from the nearest water source. No food + no water + no shelter = no surface-level inhabitants...











The cave above made a pretty good camp for a night for us, but nothing else was there. Although it looks promising, it was deserted - no shed skins, droppings etc. It's just too remote and far from anywhere habitable (we're talking around a day's walk from the nearest "occasional" water source...) This was the view from our "cave camp" the next morning. Not a bad sight to wake up to:





Try to ignore the elephant and look what it's stood on - that's fine-grade loose gravel. Despite being in the middle of the desert, there's not much sand there...





Typical "African Plains" type scene - note the tall, pale grasses that dominate here. There's a lot of food and shelter around, so you find lots of life, especially around the bases of the trees/shrubs and around rock piles:



Out there, this is the equivalent of an A road and is about as good as things get...



In the evening - we let the herd pass, set up camp, then crossed the mountains the following day.



A very hard gravel floor, with dense grass growing through:



Again, that's gravel, not sand - aside from a few dunes, the only real areas of sand were in dry river beds:





Rocky areas - as long as they weren't too remote, these tended to support a lot of life. There's plenty of cover, generally quite a bit of food, and insects have a habit of congregating around them. The best areas for finding life were - as always - around the bases of trees/shrubs and around larger rocks:





A cave inhabited by Hyrax:





Lots of life on this hillside, as well as in the grass surrounding it:





Typical terrain once you're above (but only just!) the river beds and plains. There's a surprising amount lives here - baboons, lizards, snakes, hyrax etc. I guess it's because there's a lot of shelter and food, and they're not too far from water...

[HadesDragons]

A dassie rat hideaway - the white stuff is their excrement. They literally hang over the edge of their cave and let loose...





A bit of a thicket near a river bed - spot the elephant





A steep valley above some wetland. Life here is closely tied to water availability - as soon as you get up from the valley floor there's not a great deal to see as most plants aren't able to grow. There's a real contrast between the dense vegetation of the valley floor, and the bare, rocky sides. The only thing of interest that we found was this baboon (centre of the photo) - I guess he'd climbed up for the view like we did.



Something that looks like it belongs in Lord of the Rings - unfortunately unless you can see it first hand it's impossible to appreciate the scale of it all...







As you get lower down and nearer the water table, you actually find green things







Where the terrain really drops you'll get a sudden "oasis" effect and even surface water - you can really see the contrast between the strip of "oasis" and the surrounding desert. The vegetation literally just stops - it goes from undergrowth so dense it's pretty much impassable, to open desert. As always, where there's cover, food and water there's a lot of life:











The river does periodically flood the central channel - off to the sides which are seldom flooded you can see really dense vegetation which had a lot living in them.





Our "path" at one point - reminds me of an old Vietnam war film. You have to remember that this was literally a couple of hundred yards from open desert as well, as you can see in the "zoomed out" photos just before.





A "proper" oasis in the middle of the desert:













Central American mangrove - this type of thing could also look good in a freshwater setup (imagine it for water dragons...) if you modified the types of plants accordingly...





And a bit further out of the mangrove channels, nearer to the open water:

[trw]

excellent pictures. thanks for posting them. i may take inspiration from some of the desert pictures when i finally get round to building my leos new habitat

[Sarah93]

That trip looks amazing! I'm hoping to go on a similar one but for ten weeks to Madagascar but probably not for like four years till after uni, but those pictures make me want to go even more now, i know borneo isn't Madagascar lol but just seeing people's own experiences really brings it to life

[pirez]

Great photos mate!

[xander1796]

i'm trying to use some pics i have from afghanistan and iraq to get my uromastyx's tank look good, problem is it's 10x3x3 and i cant get the consistency of the mix right for the cracked clay/sand ground any ideas? i don't want to mess it up on this scale and yours looks amazing

[trw]

Originally Posted by xander1796

i'm trying to use some pics i have from afghanistan and iraq to get my uromastyx's tank look good, problem is it's 10x3x3 and i cant get the consistency of the mix right for the cracked clay/sand ground any ideas? i don't want to mess it up on this scale and yours looks amazing

you gotta get these pics up. ive been wanting some pics from that sort of area to see leo habitats. hades dragon did a uro viv build thread. you could get some substrate ideas from there. he made a cracked dry riverbed

[xander1796]

thanks trw i'll get them on asapjust need to edit a few for on here, nobody wants to see me in them lol

[LemmyElvis]

Just a suggestion, I don't know the actual UV levels that high Pressure Sodium lights emit but they are good for growing plants so maybe would work well for a naturalistic viv. Artificial sunlight to grow plants, heat the enviroment and emit UV maybe...
Mike

[chuckie127]

see i am a big fan of natural habitats and prefer them to simple ones..