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Hello and welcome to Reptil.TV!
Today we're in Togo. About one hour away from Lome, the capital.
We're at an agricultural area. Supposedly, there are many scorpions here.
Today we'll try to find some emperor scorpions, the giant black scorpions.
And we want to find out a little more about their habitat.
I've got some professional help. Two hunters from the north of Togo.
That's Carimba, Dieu Doner and Nono, he works at the export firm.
So let's start. We hope we can show you something.
We're here in an area, where there are a lot of emperor scorpions, the giant black scorpions we know.
Today we want to have a look at what their habitat looks like.
As you can see, the soil is quite sandy.
The soil is red and relatively dry.
The scorpions live in caverns.
Digging can be cumbersome.
A few minutes later. The poor guy is still digging.
Normally there is only one scorpion inside a cave. If you are lucky, you find two.
If you see how deep the hole has to be, in order to find just one scorpion. You have to wonder how the animals can be so cheap in our country.
About a quarter hour later.
They've probably dug through a cubic meter of soil.
They just said, that when they look for scorpions, they start to dig at 7am and continue until 5pm. They are looking for scorpions the whole day.
During a day, they normally can find about 20-25 scorpions.
We gave up this hole. They had to continue digging deeper and deeper without the chance of success.
They are covering up the hole.
We are in an agricultural area and found out what these plants are.
I first thought it was "Kassawa", because it looks similar. But they are only shrubs. They grow them, because they are used as firewood.
Nothing you could eat. But the area is used for agriculture. Here you can see the covered hole again. And we are looking for the next caves.
Even the greatest hunters need a break and because we are not completely in the middle of nowhere, I've got a decent sandwich and an Eku beer.
In Togo Eku beer is very common. Eku Bavaria.
Here we found a nice cave.
They say we should be lucky here.
The cave looks promising. We should be able to find two animals inside.
This time we were successful.
We found two animals, without having to dig very deep.
Let's look at the temperature down there.
Ahh, there you can see the offspring.
The sand has got a temperature of 29,5°C.
The sand is quite warm.
In Germany some emperor scorpions are kept at room temperature. Here, even the soil has 30°C.
Again, they were successful.
They found a hole and they suspect red frogs and scorpions inside.
I have no idea what these red frogs are. But we'll see as soon as we dig them out.
They often live in the same cave together. And, as they say, the frog sometimes sits on top of the scorpion.
Okay, then we'll start digging.
In this hole, we found a pandinus and a red frog.
For all terrarium owners who like to keep animals together: these red frogs and the emperor scorpions like beeing together.
What's the scientific name for the red frog?
The scientific name is: phrynomerus bifasciatus
We got the guy cleaned up a little. Brushed of the sand.
There he goes the little one.
It's really funny that they live together.
The caves where they live in, the emperor scorpions are the ones who dig the caves.
The frog takes advantage and just sits inside the cave.
In this excavated soil, where we found the frog, and which is direct in the sun, we've got 33,6°C
Here the freshman found a hole in the ground, we called one of the hunters, showed them the hole. They say, yes it's a scorpion cave.
We found another hole before it. But he only laughed at us and said it was only some kind of hole in the ground.
But this time we identified a real cave. Maybe we'll find something.
Ahh, I think he found something.
One animal was in the hole.
freshly dug out and still humid, the temperature is 30,3°C.
An interesting story. The hunter’s clothes don't look too good. But before we drove of this morning they said, that these are their working clothes.
They wear them for hunting, because they need long sleeves and trousers. On the one hand against the mosquitoes, and even the grasses could cut into the flesh.
They apologized back in the car, because the clothes might smell a bit and are dirty. They were sorry, but those are their work clothes.
It's funny when you compare it to the clothes our hunters wear.
Here, you are looking for...?
Here we have a termite hill, where someone already searched for pythons. The hill was already dug up.
But it still is a good place to find snails and small insects.
Here we are on an agricultural field.
You can see, that in order to clear the field, they typically burn down the shrubs.
They just burn everything down. The disadvantage is, that all animals that can't run away fast enough, die with the fire.
Here we can see snails, a centipede. They all are victims of this slash and burn.
The pythons and scorpions are lucky. They live under the soil, inside their caves. Normally nothing happens to them.
They creep inside, even the frogs. The fires go over them, because they only burn for a short period, due to the grass that burns quickly.
I hope you enjoyed today’s show.
We were able to catch some animals. Our yield is not bad. We caught snails, scorpions and a frog.
And we were able to see where the animals live. And that is what we wanted to show. We wanted to show in which climate they live.
I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time.
Remain loyal and remember: check my balls and check our other info!