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Exercise Your Senses An account of the elusive nocturnal animals of the Usambara forests By Andrew Perkin If you walk the forests of Kambai at night you will be greeted by many creatures advertising their presence vocally. Seeing is not necessarily believing under the murky forest canopy so the animals have evolved and developed the other senses such as hearing and smell and so will you if you want to find them! For example, bush babies or Galagos (nocturnal primates) recognise each other by a complex repertoire of about 12 calls of which some resemble a human baby's cry. Researchers are learning these calls as amethod of species identification, and as recently as 1993 a new species of bush baby in one of Tanzania's isolated forest islands has been discovered. Other previously unrecorded calls from the East Usambaras are awaiting identification. The Tree Hyrax Dendrohyrax validus punctuates the night with its rasping/cackle like bark. This large rodent like creature lives nearly all its life up in the canopies of big trees. The Hyrax family is also an unlikely close relative of the African Elephant. Four species of Owl can be heard in the forest. One, the Usambara Eagle Owl Bubo vosseleri with its low pitched drumming noise is endemic to the the East Usambaras. Another, the Sokoke Scops Owl Otus ireneae was discovered in the forest around Kambai in 1992, this is it's second only known habitat. Frogs also make themselves known through a wide variety of chirps and croaks many emanating from 18 species known to be endemic to the East Usambaras. You can also hear the wing beats of fruit bats following their keen sense of smell to seek out forest fruits and the metallic Ôping' of the insect bats sonar guidance systems homing in on their prey. These are some of the vertebrates you may see but most you won't. In fact few mammals operate during the day in the forests. Two species of monkey can be seen as well as heard shouting across the tree tops and glimpses may be caught of the flying squirrels and the other three species of squirrel, one of which is endemic to the East Usambaras. Two species of Elephant Shrew can be detected using their long trunk like noses to sniffle in the leaf litter. Again, like many animals occurring in the East Usambaras, they are rare and unique. |
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