Chad Keates Archives
I am proud to announce that I have won best photo for the Terrestrial Vertebrate Category (Juvenile Boomslang) of the 2019 Zoology and Entomology Photo Competition. My prize was to have my photo hung up in the foyer of the Life Sciences Building. Thanks to all that voted. Winning Photo
On Wednesday the 10th of October I attended the Prize giving for the WESSA Heritage Day Photo Competition at NELM (National English Literary Museum). The photo competition was open to the public and had three categories, namely: scholar, amateur and professional. I was fortunate enough to win the amateur category with my photo of the juvenile boomslang perched in a tree (Photo below). Thanks goes to all the organisers of the event… Read More
The the 9th of September, I attended the WESSA/ Grocott’s Mail #CelebrateNaturalHeritage Bio-Bash and Photo Walk at the Makana Botanical Gardens. The day was designed to teach the youth of Grahamstown about the amazing wildlife that surrounds them. It also aimed to ignite some creative flair through encouraging artistic expression through photography. My colleagues (Anthony Evlambiou, Bruce Roestoff and Cara Trivella) and I helped out by guiding the students through the gardens… Read More
So although I started last year, and even though I have a lot… I mean a lot to learn about reptile photography, I am happy to say that I placed third in this years department photo competition. My picture of the two very cute brown-backed tree frogs now hangs on the wall, in the foyer of the Zoology and Entomology Department, amidst the other photos which placed in the top three for… Read More
Text adapted from trip report completed by Luke Kemp and I last month . Purpose of trip Recently Luke kemp and I joined a data collecting trip in the Transkei forested region as part of an ongoing study, spearheaded by Stellenbosch University. There were many teams studying many facets of forest ecology but we, Werner Conradie (Head Herpetologist at Bayworld Museum) and Theo Busschau (MSc student at Stellenbosch University) were tasked with collecting herpetological… Read More
Thanks goes to Canon’s Click Magazine and to Amber Leigh Davies for making me ‘Student under the Spotlight’ for the March 2017 edition of Click magazine. To see an electronic version of the magazine click on the link below. http://www.clickmagazine.co.za/flipbook/Click72/index.html#27
Recently I visited Durban, and more specifically Westville to see my cousins after a long year of work. While I was excited to see my cousins, and catch up, I was also excited to see some new ‘herps’ in Kwazulu Natal, one of the provinces with the highest diversity of reptiles and amphibians in South Africa. What I didn’t expect was just how much I would see. Westville Whilst there I spent… Read More
Umhlanga, Kwazulu Natal Midlands, Kwazulu Natal
This red-lipped herald (Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia) was found in the process of eating a guttural toad (Amietophrynus gutturalis) last night (9 december 2016) in Westville, Kwazulu Natal. The toad was still alive when the snake started eating it but died during the process of consumption. The snake took over an hour to consume the entire toad.
This list contains all the water snakes that can be found in and around water in the Grahamstown area. As the names suggest, this means that these snakes are usually found in close proximity to water because of their diets that mostly consist of frogs, tadpoles and fish. Although not as closely related to water as the other snakes on this list, the red-lipped herald has been listed at the end because it is closely associated with… Read More
Chad Keates 