Today we have photos from Africa from reader Susan Hoffman. Her ID’s and intro are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
To help charge the tank, here are some pics taken over just the last few days by my husband, Richard Beck, in Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya.
Hippo (Hippopotamus amphibius) feeding next to Lake Nakuru:
Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) behind Lake Nakuru lodge [JAC: This is often deemed to be the closest living relative to the elephant, though there’s some controversy about it.]:
Alternative pic of rock hyrax:
Alternative pic of rock hyrax:
Lionesses (Panthera leo) licking their cubs:
Hadada ibis (Bostrychia hagedash):
Male weaver bird, I think Speke’s (Ploceus spekei):
Female Speke’s weaver, mate of #7:
Nest of the two weavers above:
Thanks, Susan. Wow, it looks like your husband is having a very good safari.
He’s actually doing water quality research, the pics are mostly from driving back and forth between the lodge and the lake. Seems like a great park for safaris, I hope to get there myself next year!
How is nest building encoded in the genome?
I think that the claim about the Rock Hyrax is that it is the closest living land relative to the elephant.
There seems to be a pretty strong consensus that manatees and dugongs are more closely related to elephants, so that makes sense.
It means that ‘dassies’ (as they are called here) are the closest relatives to elephants *and* sirenians. When you look at a prepared skull of a ‘dassie’ it is pretty obvious they’re related more to elephants than to, say, rodents or insectivores.
Great photos – thanks for sharing!
Beautiful photos. It must be a bit scary getting so close to a hippo.
I think that pic was taken from a vehicle on the road to the boat dock, so pretty safe. He does, however, have a story about camping in a spot where (they didn’t realize) the hippos came out of a river on the way to their feeding areas. Made for a very scary night!
Good that he was safe! It is advisable to stay far away from hippos…
Just to put the danger that hippos pose to humans into context:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-36320744
From the BBC article: “the hippopotamus is the world’s deadliest large land mammal”.
However, it is not the animal that kills the most humans – mosquitos have that questionable honour.
Humans are large mammals and kill far more of one another than do hippos.
I believe mosquitoes still kill more but ‘mosquitoes’ is not just one species. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention there are about 30 – 40 species of Anopheles that transmit malaria. I don’t know what share of malarial mortality can be attributed to each of these 30-40 species but it’s very possible that the single most deadly animal species for humans is Homo sapiens!
These were terrific, thanks! The male weaver bird is stunning. I think the 1st and 3rd Hyrax photos are the same.