Mkhambathi Nature Reserve
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Template:Use South African English Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Script error: No such module "Infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Template:Maplink
Mkhambathi Nature Reserve (or Mkambati Nature Reserve)[1] is a protected area at Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is Script error: No such module "convert"., with the Pondoland Marine Protected Area off its coastal edge. The reserve is located in the Pondoland Centre of Plant Endemism and the greater Maputaland–Pondoland–Albany Hotspot, and is covered in open grassland, dotted with patches of indigenous forest, swamp forests and flanked by the forested ravines of the Msikaba and Mtentu rivers.[2][3] The Reserve was listed as a protected Ramsar site in 2025.[4]
Biodiversity
Amphibians
Amphibians occur in the coastal region of the reserve.
- Bush squeaker
- Forest tree frog
- Knysna leaf-folding frog
- Natal chirping frog
- Plaintive rain frog
- Yellow-striped reed frog
Birds
The reserve has a large colony (400–800 individuals) of Cape vulture (a threatened species).[5]
<templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>
- African finfoot
- African grass owl
- Black-bellied bustard
- Black-bellied starling
- Black-rumped buttonquail
- Black-winged lapwing
- Broad-tailed warbler
- Brown scrub robin
- Buff-streaked chat
- Cape cormorant
- Cape vulture
- Chorister robin-chat
- Corn crake
- Crowned eagle
- Denham's bustard
- Grey crowned crane
- Grey sunbird
- Gurney's sugarbird
- Half-collared kingfisher
- Knysna woodpecker
- Olive sunbird
- Southern ground hornbill
- Spotted ground thrush
- Striped flufftail
- Swamp nightjar
- White-backed night heron
Mammals
Source:[6]
- Chacma baboon
- Black-backed jackal
- Bushbuck
- Eland
- Southern reedbuck
- Common duiker
- Zulu golden mole
- Forest shrew
- Least dwarf shrew
Reptiles
Vegetation
There is an abundance of endemic plants found in the Pondoland landscape of the reserve, including the endemic false water-berry, Rhynchocalyx lawsonioides. The Pondo palm is only found in this region, growing along the banks of the Msikaba and Mtentu rivers. Gurney's sugarbird can be found in protea bushes. Broad-tailed warblers can be found in marshland.
Threats
The endemic plants in the reserve face threats from fire as a consequence of poaching game, and of pervading invasive alien plants like:[5]
Gallery
-
Brunia trygyna. A species on the brink of extinction. The only remaining plant in the Mkhambathi Nature Reserve.
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Script error: No such module "Navbox".