This is a small excerpt of a series of blogs that I have written about some of my work in southern Africa. This one is specifically about the Northern Cape of South Africa.
When I first started working in Southern Africa a few years ago, my original intention was to gather as many data for the dispholidine systematics project as was reasonably possible. However, this quickly evolved into a collaborative effort between multiple institutions and spanning various phylogenetic lineages that hadn't previously been of interest. Since then, I've been able to spend many weeks throughout Southern Africa, in particular South Africa and Swaziland. This blog segment focuses of some of the photographic impressions that I collected during my time in the Northern Cape of South Africa. It is the largest (just a tad smaller than Montana) and least populated province (with barely a few more people than Rhode Island) in South Africa. The Northern Cape borders Namibia and Botswana to the north, and contains numerous famous national parks, such as the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park. Even though many people prefer the lush forests of the eastern provinces or the wine routes of the Western Cape, I have developed a soft spot for the diversity and natural beauty of the Northern Cape. Hopefully the images shown in this blog will give you an adequate insight into this fascinating place.
Large parts of the Northern Cape are covered by the Karoo--a semi-desert region that has a diverse geological history, but is a rough terrain for people to colonize. This picture was taken near the provincial border between the Northern Cape and the Free State.
The Orange River, named after the Dutch Prince of Orange, is a provincial and international border, and biogeographic landmark.
This image was taken near Colesberg, in the eastern part of the Northern Cape. This is an area that saw a lot of fighting during the Anglo-Boer War of the late 19th century.
If we're just going by names, then Pofadder (translated: Puff adder) has got to be my favorite town. This part of South Africa is known as Bushmansland, and due to its infertile soil and saline groundwater is thought to be some of the most inhospitable area in the country. One day, I will have enough time to catch a puff adder in Poffadder.
Sociable weavers (
Philetairus socius) are passerid birds that are particularly common in the Northern Cape. They are highly social, and form massive community nests, which can contain over a hundred pairs of birds, consisting of multiple generations. These nests are popular feeding spots for cape cobras (
Naja nivea), who can gorge themselves to their heart's desire. This picture was taken near Upington, a town on the northern banks of the Orange River.
The Kalahari Desert is actually a semi-desert, and as such offers a much greater diversity of flora and fauna than a true desert does. Combined with the surrounding basin, it covers 970,000 square miles of area.
Coral cobras (
Aspidelaps lubricus) is one of the taxa that we have had our phylogenetic eye on. These small elapids are full of character, and their taxonomy really needs to be brought out of the dark ages. We came across several specimens along the western coast of South Africa, an area called Namaqualand.
This grumpy little bushveld rain frog (
Breviceps adspersus) was found south of Mokala National Park, in the eastern part of the Northern Cape. It is a direct developing species that lives underground. When agitated, they inflate themselves in order to avoid removal from the burrow. This one looks slightly ticked...
), even though I don't currently keep any myself. I've sampled many of them all over southern Africa, and the initial results of the molecular work suggest that there is a lot more going on than we think. While that project is not currently very high priority, I think we can expect that whole group to be completely taxonomically revised at some point in the near future.
Linear Mode
