Questions regarding site(s) to see Giant Otter Shrew
Hello!
I was curious to see if anyone knew of what some ‘better’ possible sites to see a Giant Otter Shrew (Potamogale velox), I understand that a reliable site may not exist at this time.
If more than one ‘better’ option exists, I would also be interested to know if any site overlaps the ranges of a few other species, although if you do not know or this would be too time consuming to consider, I completely understand.
- Zebra Duiker (Cephalophus zebra)
- Rhynchocyon (Any species in genus)
- Any Potto / Golden Potto (Perodicticinae)
- Giant Pangolin (Smutsia gigantea)
- Water Chevrotain (Hyemoschus aquaticus)
- Any African Golden Mole (Chrysochloridae)
- Maned Rat (Lophiomys imhausi)
Thank you for any help you can provide, and have a wonderful day!
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6 Comments
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chasingwildlife
Here is a link to iNaturalist – a slightly hidden mapping service.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/map?taxa=44950,42478,42105,75082,846192,121793,1431322#5/-5.896/17.817Each of the numbers represents the ID in the URL of the species/genus/taxa level. For anybody who wants to do this elsewhere, just go to the page for the animal, look at the address in the browser, copy the ID number and paste in place of the numbers in the URL I gave. in the format …..taxa=xxxx,xxxx,xxxx#……..
Ranges are shown for the species, and for the higher levels of taxa only observations are shown (which is limited by wealth, interest, internet access etc).
As you can see there isn’t much overlap. The best areas to see as many as possible are probably South Africa and Cameroon/Republic of Congo. The Maned Rat doesn’t seem to play nicely with your other species.
As you can see, the number of sightings in RSA is much bigger because of the relative wealth of the country. Population density also plays a role, making you think that animal sightings in NYC are nearly as good as the Okavango. However, the range maps and a knowledge of the national parks or land use in certain areas often help find a good spot for finding animals. Especially when you take the observations into account.
Hope this helps
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chasingwildlife
Of course, you didn’t know about it, nobody does 🙂
Except for the guy who told me, and now you. It isn’t linked from anywhere so it is hard to find, but the code is there if you know how to manipulate the URL to ask for it.
It is such a useful feature, especially for checking if ranges overlap when you have a doubt over two possible IDs.
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tomeslice
That’s a nice list of species.. if you find a place where they are all visible together let me know 😉
FYI – it seems that the distribution ranges for crested rat and giant otter shrew don’t overlap…
But most of the other species that you listed do overlap.
If (/when) I make a repeated visit to Sangha Lodge I may try to focus on giant otter shrew there.. it’s worth asking Rod Cassidy if they get any signs and/or camera traps.
They do easily get pottos there and 2 pangolin species are possible (though not giant, for the time being). Plus water chevrotain and golden moles have been seen.
Giant otter shrews are of course hard, and there are only a couple of observations on iNaturalist, but they are found in small rivers and streams throughout their distribution – so if you focus solely on trying to find them, I would be interested to hear the stories and hopefully potential success 🙂