A black panther is the melanistic color variant of any big cat species. Black panthers in Asia and Africa are leopards, and those in the Americas are black jaguars. Melanism is relatively common in leopards, with melanistic individuals making up approximately 11% of the species, occurring at very different rates in different subspecies with non-random distribution.
When African Penguins first came to False Bay on the South African coast in 1983 from Dyer Island, which is near Gans Bay, there was plenty for them to eat and so the colony grew rapidly. In recent years, however, commercial fishing, marine pollution and habitat destruction have negatively affected the size of the colony. In 1910, it was estimated that there were approximately one-and-a-half million African Penguins; a century later, the aquatic bird was classified as an endangered species. These days there are only a paltry 26 000 breeding pairs left in the whole world!
The Pretoria National Botanical Garden, located in the suburb of Brummeria in east Tshwane, was established in 1946 after the University of Pretoria’s experimental farm and private properties were acquired by the Department of Agriculture. The garden was formerly known as the Transvaal National Botanic Gardens, and was primarily a research facility under the management of the Botanical Research Institute, which dates back to 1903.
