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Warthogs are day animals and spend most of their time looking for food. They are normally found in family groups. Warthogs have the peculiar habit of kneeling on the front knees while feeding and foraging in a localised area. They shelter in burrows at night, which they enter tail first. Socially, three main groups are encountered, namely solitary boars, bachelor groups and matriarchal groups. Matriarchal groups consist of adult sows with their young and yearlings. Boars play no part in rearing piglets and seldom associate with sows outside the mating process. Promiscuous, both sexes will mate with more than one partner. Warthogs can frequently be found at waterholes where they dig in the marsh and wallow in the mud with obvious enthusiasm.

22 January 2019Picture of the day, Wildlife

Tusks

The rock hyrax, also called rock badger, rock rabbit, and Cape hyrax is a medium-sized terrestrial mammal native to Africa and the Middle East. Commonly referred to in South African English as the dassie. Along with other hyrax species and the manatee, this species is the most closely related to the elephant. Prominent in and apparently unique to hyraxes is the dorsal gland, which excretes an odour used for social communication and territorial marking. The gland is most clearly visible in dominant males. The rock hyrax has a pointed head, short neck, and rounded ears. They have long black whiskers on their muzzles. The rock hyrax has a prominent pair of long, pointed tusk-like upper incisors which are reminiscent of the elephant, to which the hyrax is distantly related.

8 January 2019Picture of the day, Wildlife

Sedate

An elephant’s skull needs to be physically large in order to support the heavy tusks and powerful trunk. To minimize weight, the huge skull has a thick wall but contains large honey-comb like spaces. Male African elephants have a curved forehead. Females are more square in profile. Elephants have short necks and cannot turn their heads completely sideways. Elephant eyes are almost identical in size to those of a human. They are normally green or hazel in colour and are protected by long eyelashes. Elephants do not have tear ducts. In bright sunlight, elephants have poor eyesight. They can see best in dim light. An African elephant’s impressive ears are not just used for hearing. They help regulate the animal’s body temperature and may also be spread out wide in threat displays. Elephant ears contain a large number of blood vessels which are covered by very thin skin. When the ears are flapped, air flows over the blood vessels and the animal loses heat from them. Measuring up to 2m high and over 1m wide, 12 litres of blood can flow through each ear every minute and the animal’s body temperature can be reduced by three degrees. An elephant’s average body temperature is 35.9 degrees Celsius, just below that of a human (37 degrees). Elephants have excellent hearing and are thought to be able to communicate with other individuals several kilometres away. They can hear low-frequency sounds which are not audible to humans. The distinctive tears and nicks in elephants’ ears are used by scientists to help identify individual animals in the wild.

13 December 2018Picture of the day, Wildlife