Enter: Uromastyx

The third day of my journey in Tunisia was defined by driving - we set off early in the morning to meet with an IRA-sponsored field technician and driver to guide us to some of the field sites containing one of the 'Big Five' - a Uromastyx (also known as the spiny-tailed lizard). Uromastyx are an important and exotic genus of African lizard which, in Tunisa, are nearing endangerment. Anecdotally, we heard that in regions of Tunisia Uromastyx acanthinura are said to have medicinal properties and are generally killed and consumed for that reason, and for the sake of culinary delicacy in other parts of inland Arabia. One of the few Arabic words I learned during my visit was actually that of the Spiny Tailed lizard - "ḍabb" (ضَـبْ), kind of pronounced "thubb" without an overly-distinguished 'th' sound.

We took a little side-journey as our first stop to meet up with our friend Abhir who studies a native mammal called gundi - cute little rodents that live in various regions of North Africa. While we didn't get to see any while I was there, some research indicates that they are similar to chinchillas in terms of size and cuteness.

The gundi often are found around these types of creviced walls, in rocky cliffsides, or in other similar areas. We found evidence of the gundi in the form of a latrine that was near a trap in the rocky wall.

I found quite literally the biggest rolly-polly I had ever seen before here in this area. Index finger for scale.

As we left, we saw more of the village homes pass us by, with horses and other homestead animals taking in the sunny day. Onward to the uromastyx sites!

Something particularly beautiful about this region is the reminiscent structures that you might find still in use today - commonly, you will find these tiered agricultural platforms used for growing stuff and to assist in irrigation. We saw them all over the place while driving and while passing through villages.

Driving, again, is quite beautiful in this southern region of Tunisia. Rolling arid land, dotted with shrubbery and rocks, precedes distant mountains.

Our first stop was an old site that people had seen the Uromastix before. This was one of those cases where having a zoom lens was nice, but an extra 200mm of zoom would have been even better. Right off the highway, we pulled over and approached a steep descent which overlooked a little valley that quickly rose back up into rocky hillside. We spent our time there scanning the hillside for lizard-sign.

While we didn't see any Uromastyx here for our scanning efforts, Maria noticed some birds that had made a home in these burrows towards the valley floor. You can see one about to enter its nest in the shadow of the plateau, towards the center of the frame.

This beetle reminded me of a robot you might see in a Star Wars film. Something about its head shape - super cool :)

As we continued onward, we had one more stop today to check for Uromastyx. This place was another 45 minutes past where we were currently. The level of desolation increased rapidly, and we didn't see very much on our drive until we noticed this large pillar of fire in the distance. As it turns out, there were many "no photography" signs as this area was technically a military zone. Still not sure what the fire was for...

When we arrived at the next site, the first animal we found was a wild camel! It was rather picturesque to see them grazing and raoming around in the wild.

This habitat was mostly as you see above, except our driver was following some tracks to try and get us to these specific GPS coordinates that was supposedly a Uromastyx spot. I don't think we ever quite got to where we were suppsoed to by vehicle (it was a very bumpy ride :).

Doug points out this burrow's potential to be a mammal's home while someone went to grab a flashlight - alas, there were no lizards to be seen in this area.

We decided to head on home at this point - before leaving, though, I snapped a pic of a berber tent we saw in the distance - someone's home out here in the unforgiving desert.