Zimbabwe: Lake Kariba – Night Walks
How about some night walking in the African bush (we were on an island so the risk of running into a leopard wasn’t high). But there is plenty of other animals and insects you can see. We spotted several bushbabies that quickly jumped away and a beautiful genet cat. Genet is a small carnivore cat (larger then domestic cat but smaller then a leopard or cheetah), and is nocturnal, so seeing one is not common. Finally – the scorpions! They glow! Using ultraviolet light, you could see the ground covered with scorpions of all sizes. Apparently, all scorpions glow in the ultraviolet light. Certain molecules in one layer of the the tough but flexible scorpion’s exoskeleton, absorb the longer wavelengths of ultraviolet light and emit it in different wavelengths that are visible at night as a blue-green glow. All these scorpions bite, and quite severe, possibly sending your body into a shock that would require an epipen injection. But fingers crossed, we got lucky so far.
