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PotM Calendar - WiNZ Photography

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PotM Calendar

The Photo of the Month (see gallery) is a year-round calendar of wildlife and nature images with story contributions from visitors, friends and fellow photographers.
 When it comes to nature photography, it's not only those exciting tales of high adventure that often accompany talent and skill for a fabulous result. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a well-timed shot or well-framed one can say as much about you as a photographer. So, if you'd like to showcase one of your pictures here, free, for one calendar month with a bio or personal account, then this page is for you.












A Tail of the Unexpected by Roger Cox
Egypt – a land of antiquity founded on the rocky desert plains of North Africa bordering the southern sands of the Sahara. West of the Nile Valley, a vast, arid, stony region fit only for those animals and plants with specific adaptations to call such gravel-laden wastelands home. Among them is the Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard, a member of the uromastyx1 or thorny-tailed lizard family, a.k.a, mastiguires1. These highly sought solitary reptiles, with large, powerful jaws, are oviparous2 omnivores – found throughout the Northern deserts of Africa, Iran, India, and Pakistan.
 Deep, within their burrows females can tend up to twenty hatchlings for several weeks. At first, the youngsters feed on invertebrates but soon develop a taste for vegetation with the help of symbiotic gut flora, which they obtain by ingesting their parents' faeces!
 Left undisturbed, individuals can grow up to 90 cm in length and live for several decades – a testament to their resilience under the severity of desert life. However, when unsettled, they not only hiss loudly but can also deliver a nasty bite and unexpectedly use their long, barbed tails to lash out the faces of burrow intruders when threatened or improperly handled. Sadly, from the few population studies conducted for their conservation, the Egyptian uromastyx is now on the IUCN Red List as vulnerable primarily due to habitat loss and its harvesting for food, Chinese medicine, and the pet trade.

 1.  From the Ancient Greek “oura,” meaning tail, and “mastiga” meaning whip or scourge. This refers to the spiny tails that uromastyx lizards have and use to defend themselves.
 2.  Producing mature eggs that immediately hatch once expelled from the body.





Special announcements or simple hellos. Place your message or link here as part of your PotM agreement. With 11 places left for 2025, the PotM Calendar is now closed until January 18th. To learn more about posting news, comments and events under a PotM agreement, see our Terms of Use page, where you can submit your photo (along with your story) during the last two weeks of every month.
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