Tusker: 12 November 2008
November 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Hein, one of our Trails Guides, reported via radio at the end of the evening that he and his guests had seen lion, just before the much needed spring storm rolled in.
Porcupine
September 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Porcupine is the largest and heaviest of African rodents. The head is roundish and rather domed, with a blunt muzzle and small eyes and ears. The legs are short and sturdy, and each foot has five toes, all equipped with powerful claws.
Porcupine
Many animals come away from a porcupine encounter with quills protruding from their own snouts or bodies. Quills have sharp tips and overlapping scales or barbs that make them difficult to remove once they are stuck in another animal’s skin. Porcupines grow new quills to replace the ones they lose. click here to continue reading…
Bush Babies
August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Bush babies have large, round eyes for good night vision and bat like ears that enable them to track insect prey in the dark. Fast, agile and accurate, they catch some insects on the ground and snatch others from the air. As they jump through thorn bush or thick growth, they fold their delicate ears flat against their heads to protect them. They fold them during rest, too.
Bush Babies
The bush baby travels through the trees in literal leaps and bounds. In midflight it tucks its arms and legs close to the body and as it lands, brings them forward, grabbing a branch with its hands and feet. In a series of leaps a bush baby can easily cover 10 yards in seconds. The tail (longer than the length of the head and body) powers the leaps made to catch prey, escape from enemies or get around obstacles. The bush baby’s other methods of locomotion are kangaroolike hops or simply walking or running on four legs. click here to continue reading…
Giraffe
August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Giraffes’ long limbs, necks, and tongues enable them to reach vegetation in the trees—well above where other browsers can reach. Nine subspecies, differing in coat pattern and number of horns, live in different parts of Africa.Giraffes’ distinctive orangish, rusty, or blackish coats are broken into patchworks by whitish outlines. All-whitish giraffes are a rare find.
The Giraffe
Giraffe will drink if water is available, but can survive without it. The forelegs are straddled and the knees bent in order to get the head down low enough. While drinking they are very vulnerable and will not drink if suspicious of danger. Females, calves and juveniles occur in herds of about 10 with only very loose social ties, and a flexible membership. Young males may form small bachelor groups. Mature bulls are nearly always alone, except when they join a female herd for mating. Young males spar by neck wrestling, twisting their necks together and trying to push the opponent off balance. click here to read more…
Warthogs
July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus ) is a wild member of the pig family that lives in the plains and open woodlands of Africa. They are the only widely recognised species in their genus, though some authors divide them into two species. On that classification, P. africanus is the Common Warthog and P. aethiopicus is the Cape or Somali Warthog. Warthogs are identifiable by the two pairs of tusks on their head, which are used as weapons against predators. They eat grass, berries, bark, roots, and carrion. One can spend many hours at a waterhole watching these animals perform their antics. This is another uncommonly tough animal that requires a well-placed shot to prevent it from disappearing down an unused den.
Warthogs
Warthogs are members of the same family as domestic pigs, but present a much different appearance. These sturdy hogs are not among the world’s most aesthetically pleasing animals—their large, flat heads are covered with “warts” which are actually protective bumps. Warthogs also sport four sharp tusks. They are mostly bald, but they do have some sparse hair and a thicker mane on their backs. click here to read more
Fiona Green (Sandton, South Africa)
May 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Fiona Green was a guest with Transfrontiers in early 2008. This album is a selection of photos she took while on trail.
Baobab Trees
May 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Baobabs are very distinctive and there is little chance of ever mistaking any other tree for a baobab. The bark is smooth, the wood if fibrous with a high water content. Leaves are produced only during the wet season, starting as early as late October and persisting until approximately April. The adult leaves are digitately compound. There are usually 5-11 leaflets whose margins are entire in all species except Adansonia rubrostipa in which they are serrate. All species set fruits in the late dry season or early wet season. Flowers are large and sturdy and produce nectar only one night. The fruit is a dry berry or an indehiscent capsule. The seeds are numerous, large, kidney shaped and have a very thick testa. Enveloping the seeds is a cream-colored pulp or tartar, the texture of which varies from chalky to spongy depending on the species and the age of the fruit.
Baobab Tree
Baobabs are very difficult to kill. They can be burnt or stripped of their bark, and will simply form new bark and carry on growing. When they do die, they rot from the inside and collapse suddenly, leaving behind a heap of fibres, resulting in the belief that they do not die at all, but simply disappear. In the wet months water is stored in their thick, corky, fire-resistant trunks for the nine dry months ahead. A mature Baobab can store more than 120,000 litres of water. click here to read more…
Elephants
May 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Conservation on the Agenda, as 17 African Nations meet to talk Elephants
06 February 2008 — IFAW
(Bamako, Mali – 06 February 2008) Delegates from 17 African elephant range states will hold meetings for two days in Bamako to work towards pro-elephant conservation and anti- ivory trade initiatives. From this meeting, there is potential for the formation of a coalition of like-minded states that will work towards strengthening elephant conservation. click here to continue reading…
The Debate on Elephant Culling in South Africa
Sometime in the next few months a life or death decision will be taken on the future of thousands of elephants in South Africa’s world famous Kruger National Park (KNP). The Kruger National Park (KNP) is a flagship wildlife reserve. For years, it has represented much of what is good in wildlife conservation. It is kept and run well, its animal husbandry is considered world-class, and the park even stopped culling elephants (killing them as a means of population control) in 1995, mostly because of international and local pressure. click here to continue reading…
African nations join forces to form anti-ivory trade coalition
07 February 2008 — IFAW
Delegates gathered in the West African country of Mali’s capital for a two-day meeting to discuss how they will pave the way forward for elephants following decisions at the 14th Conference of the Parties of CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species) to allow huge ivory stock sales, which will take place before commencement of a nine-year trade suspension. There is a great concern by range states that huge tons of ivory being released into the markets will only stimulate demand and prompt poachers to kill more elephants.click here to continue reading…
Honey Badgers
May 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Honey badgers are fierce carnivores with an extremely keen sense of smell. They are well known for their snake killing abilities, by which they will grab a snake behind the head in its jaws and kill it. Honey badgers can devour an entire snake (150 cm/5ft or less) in 15 minutes.The Honey Badger is among the fiercest hunters of the desert, with prey including earthworms, termites, scorpions, porcupines, hares, and even larger prey such as tortoises, crocodiles up to one metre in size, and snakes. Its ferocious reputation extends to attacks on animals much larger than itself. Several African tribes report that the honey badger attacks the scrotum of larger mammals if provoked and has even castrated humans.
Honey Badger — In the news
The Honey badger or ratel is a tenacious small carnivore that has a reputation for being, pound for pound, Africa’s most fearless animal despite its small size. It is even listed as the “most fearless animal in the world” in the 2002 Guinness Book of Records. Tales of their fondness for honey and the foraging association between the Greater Honeyguide and honey badgers have reached almost legendary proportions. click here to read more…
Leopards
April 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Leopard is the fifth largest feline in the world behind the tiger, lion, jaguar and mountain lion. They
have a body length between 0.9 and 1.9 m (3 – 6.25 ft), a tail length between 60 and 110 cms (24 – 43 inches) and they weigh between 82 and 200 lbs). There can be considerable variations in the size of Leopards due to their distribution and available resources, for example Leopards that live in mountainous regions are smaller than those that live on savannahs due to their prey being smaller. Also typically female Leopards are 20 – 40 % smaller than males.
The Leopard
The leopard (Panthera pardus) is an Old World mammal of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four big cats of the genus Panthera, which also comprises the tiger, lion, and jaguar. Leopards that are melanistic, either completely black or very dark in coloration, are one of the big cats known colloquially as black panthers. Once distributed across southern Eurasia and Africa, from Korea to South Africa and Spain, it has disappeared from much of its former range and now chiefly occurs in subsaharan Africa. There are fragmented populations in Israel, Indochina, Malaysia, and western China. Despite the loss of range and continued population declines, the cat remains a least-concern species, its numbers are greater than that of the other Panthera species, all of which face more acute conservation concerns. Click here to read more