Predators and Parasites
Predators include the Leopard, Serval, cats, the Black-headed Heron, Dark Chanting Goshawk, African Hawk-Eagle and Wahlberg's Eagle. In South Africa, newly hatched chicks were taken by a Boomslang. If surprised, an African Crake will leap vertically into the air before running away, a tactic believed to help it to evade snakes or terrestrial mammals.
Parasites of this species include ticks of the family Ixodidae, and a feather mite, Metanalges elongatus, of the subspecies M. e. curtus. The nominate form of the mite occurs thousands of kilometres away in New Caledonia.
Read more about this topic: African Crake
Famous quotes containing the word parasites:
“Shy and proud men ... are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.”
—Sir Henry Taylor (1800–1886)