A few reptiles from Kenya

Last summer I traveled to Kenya with the Biodiversity of Kenya class offered at Miami and saw an amazing amount of organisms, including a handful of really neat reptiles. Here are three of my favorites: This a type of flap necked chameleon (Camaeleo dilepis) we found crossing the road near Tsavo National park. Our guide helped it get off the road and onto some bushes, where it immediately changed from the color in the picture to a very dark green - that was pretty awesome to watch. Chameleons famous for being able to change their color by moving melanopores in their skin that differ in their ability to reflect certain colors of light, and often do so more according to their mood than to match the habitat around them.

This is the well known Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) we saw in the Talek river in the Masi Mara National Reserve. They have a very wide range in Africa, are estimated to have an average size of around 5 meters and live up to 45 years.

It was really, really exciting to have seen this black spitting cobra (Naja nigricollis) in the Mara. It was a fairly large individual (4 or 5 feet at least) that we spotted just lying out in a fairly open area next to a stream, though it eventually slithered into some shrubs. This cobra is able to exject venom from its fangs (spraying rather than spitting, as certain muscles are used to squeeze the venom glands which projects the venom out of holes in the fangs) if threatened with very good accuracy up to 2 meters...the venom causes severe burning and pain in eyes, maybe causing permanent blindness.

(Posted by Paula Cimprich)