Kalahari
gregladen | July 3, 2017My father in law is an excellent amateur mixologist. I don't drink alcohol very often, but we're all up at the cabins, so last night I had a paper plane. And I believe this is what led to a night of strange and extensive dreams, and in my dreams was my recently deceased PhD adviser, Irv DeVore. (Irv was not dead in the dream.) DeVore is famous for having initiated, with Richard Lee, the first scientific study of extant living foragers, and they worked with the Ju/'Honasi of Botswana/Namibia/South Africa.
So, it was strange to have the lingering dream on my mind as I opened the latest…
gregladen | May 26, 2011When wildebeest, such as those famous for crossing the Mara River in Tanzania during their annual migration, run into a crocodile or some other danger it is often the first time they've seen that particular thing. This is because most wildebeest don't live very long so many are on their very first migration. One wonders what would happen if you killed all of the wildebeest migrating in a particular year and set new ones out on the landscape to take their place. Would the migration continue?
Probably not, initially. Something like this did in fact happen on the Botswana-South Africa-…
gregladen | April 7, 2011... Continued ...
I started out walking a good six feet behind her, to avoid the sand she was kicking up and the occasional thorn-lined branch that might swing back in the wake of anyone walking through the African Bush. We were traversing open country in the Kalahari, in an area sealed off from people owing to the presence of unfriendly lions and other dangers. We were doing this in part because we both felt like we had been locked up for days and needed some freedom; We needed freedom from confinement, freedom from the people we were with, freedom from patronizing park employees, freedom…
gregladen | January 10, 2010Did you ever watch cattle? I mean, really watch them, for a few hours? Mostly they just sit or stand around munching on grass, chewing their cud, or snoozing. But every once in a while a handful of them will stand up and point in one direction. And they may take a few steps in that direction. Then a few more will join them. And once a critical mass has been reached, the whole herd will just go. Domestic cattle, wild African cape buffalo, whatever. This is what they do.
And as the cattle do, so do Scienceblogs.com bloggers. And the current stampede about to form up is about fitness. I'm…
gregladen | December 2, 2008Also known as the "Anti-Dork Antelope." Not really. These are springbok.
The springbok has four remarkable characteristics. It is among the most dramatically colored of the antelopes, with the starkest contrast between the dark lateral stripe and the light brown (above) and white (below) fur. It is the fastest of the antelopes, by far. Lions and leopards need not apply: These are too fast for you to catch. It is one of the most rapidly reproducing of the antelopes, and will pump out little antelope babies as long as there is grass to eat. In the kalahri, where this photograph was…
gregladen | December 6, 2007Plocepasser mahali (subspecies stentor?) and friends. Kalahari, South Africa.