Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife have a project where they are eradicating invasive alien species in all of their parks. Alien plants are being removed and replaced with indigenous plants. Seedling of indigenous plants are being grown at Hillside Nature Reserve and will be distributed to all the reserves at Ukhahlamba. KZN Museum has been asked to provide expertise on earthworms and snails that might be at the nursery in order to prevent transporting, if present, the alien earthworms or snails to other reserves. The survey will also look into all the reserves to get records of what species are already present. The Hillside Nature Reserve was the first stop and alien earthworms and snails were recorded. The survey in other reserves will resume again in the next rainy season.
Photo: KZN Museum staff doing a survey at Hillside nursery
Horse flies, also known as deer flies or clegs, are haematophagous flies that feed on blood of mammals, bird and even reptiles. They have a very sore bite and if you’ve ever been bitten by one, you know all about it. The females are the ones that bite because they need protein to develop their eggs. They spread diseases including bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens. In order to know what species of horse flies are spreading particular pathogens, we need to be able to identify the species correctly.