habitat_narrative
Terrestrial
This species is found in a wide number of habitats, including grassland, savannah, scrublands and compost heaps in gardens. In the eastern parts of its range, it is found primarily in moist habitats along streams and wetlands and requires cover through dense undergrowth, shrubs, disused rodent burrows, termitaria holes or beneath rocks (Skinner and Chimimba 2005). In North West Province, it was taken from a variety of habitats, such as vleis and dense bushveld with rank grass (Power 2014). In KwaZulu-Natal province, they have been collected from grass clumps, reedbeds, fig-dominated forests, savannah woodland, tall grassland and fallow agricultural fields (Taylor 1998). In Mhkuze and Phinda Game Reserves, it was found in both woodland, floodplain grassland, Lebombo thicket and Sand forest habitat (Delcros et al. 2014, Rautenbach et al. 2014). In Swaziland, it occurs in a wide range of vegetation types from moist middleveld grasslands to Acacia and broad-leaf savanna in the Lowveld region, but is closely associated with areas which have tall, dense grass and absent from Highveld sour grassland (Monadjem 1998). In its western range, they occur in scrub bushes and riverine woodland where there is debris. They probably rely on dew in the water-scarce Kalahari. They show a preference for dense vegetation, deep leaf litter and proximity to water (Dickman 1995, Rautenbach et al. 2014).
It is commensal with humans and occurs in modified landscapes, such as gardens and agricultural areas. It thus fulfils a similar niche to C. flavescens except occurring more in the north of the assessment region. In Swaziland, for example, C. hirta is found in the Lowveld whereas C. flavescens is found at higher altitudes (Monadjem 1999), which corresponds broadly to a savannah versus grassland niche respectively.
They are active throughout day and night but predominantly nocturnal (Baxter et al. 1979) and, while normally foraging solitarily, Meester (1963) showed they can live together in pairs and groups. While mainly insectivorous, small amounts of plant material are also ingested (Dickman 1995). They also feed on carcasses of rodents and bats and can be cannibalistic (Meester 1963).
Ecosystem and cultural services: An important prey species (e.g., Avery and Avery 2011).
