Meadowridge Common is home to a variety of plants and fungi, mammals, birds, insects and other invertebrates, as well as a whole ecosystem underground that we know very little about. This is why our patch of Cape Flats Sand Fynbos is so important as it conserves a piece of un-transformed fynbos which holds the magic ingredients for being able to withstand a changing climate. Meet some of the creatures that live on the Common.
The Four-strped Fieldmouse (Rhabdomys pumilio), or Cape Fieldmouse, is found throughout southern Africa. The four stripes running down its back, and red-brown ears, are its distinctive characteristics. It is active in the day, unlike most mice, and is the mouse you are most likely to see here. It mostly eats seeds and grass and some flowers like vygies and proteas. These fieldmice are important seed dispersers in the fynbos, as they bury more seeds than they can eat. The uneaten seeds are thus stored safely underground, away from fire and other predators, until it is time for them to germinate. This is known as “scatter hoarding”.
Fieldmice and other rodents are also key pollinators of many fynbos plants as they feed on the flowers, and inadvertently carry pollen on their heads, to be rubbed off on other flowers, thereby effecting fertilization.
The fieldmice nest in underground burrows, lined with soft vegetable debris, with entrances at the base of clumps of grass. They also construct round nests above ground, hidden in clumps of grass with a single entrance. In the fynbos, one to three young are born in summer.
They are also prey for key fynbos animals such as diurnal raptors, snakes, mongooses, foxes and caracals.