Reptile Radar

REVERED BY SOME, FEARED BY MANY, SNAKES HAVE A COMPLICATED HISTORY IN AFRICA. THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED, REPRESENTING ONLY A FRAGMENT OF ECOLOGICAL STUDIES. THIS SEEMS TO BE CHANGING AND THEY ARE SLOWLY CREEPING INTO THE SPOTLIGHT.

- Freddie Hiney

Across sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) plains, an unexpected hero slithers in the grass: the puffadder.

These reptiles are responsible for some of the highest fatality rates on the continent. They're also one of the most abundant, found throughout the continent-from Senegal to South Africa.

Typically injecting prey with around 80-240mg of cytotoxic venom—the lethal dose for a human is 100mg—puff adders are now emerging as effective environmental stabilizers, able to control rodent populations at a remarkable rate.

When rodents, such as mice and rats, are presented with the right conditions, these highly adaptable survivors breed at speed. A single female can produce hundreds of offspring a year.

“Rodent blooms (increase in numbers) are often related to rainfall, and because they've got such short growth periods, their populations can explode in a very short period of time,” says Graham Alexander, Professor of Herpetology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, to FORBES AFRICA.

Africa’s rapid urbanization, poor housing infrastructure, and inadequate waste management systems make it a highly suitable region for rodents to thrive, posing a plethora of potential concerns for human health and economic activity.

Rats are a common headache for farmers, often found chewing through storage bags or feeding on seeds, roots, and crops, leaving entire regions vulnerable to food scarcity.

In Western Kenya, a 2016 Gadisa et al. report revealed how ravaging rodents can be, reporting 34% loss in grain, and 20% damage in maize crops, while Ethiopia experienced between 9-48% loss in coffee, 21-60% in cotton, and 15-40% in pulses and oil seeds.

During peak activity, nests of mice feed continuously, their high metabolism demanding several meals a day. It’s an endless cycle that makes farmlands a desirable destination.