After returning from our morning drive, we took a nap (for 3 hours) and then packed up and left. We took the scenic drive to Skakuza. Along the way we stoped at the Lower Sabie gift shop, and also saw many more animals, including this elephant.
Day 8, Part 2 These are all the animals we saw on our treck from Crocodile Bridge to Skakuza. We stopped at Lower Sabie to do some touristy shopping. Unfortunately, we took too much time getting to Skakuza, and missed our evening safari drive by like 10 minutes! I wanted to say "I told you so!" to those naysawers who said we had until dark, but oh well, gotta let it go. After arriving in Skakuza, we unpacked, shopped for dinner and souveniers. I couldn't sleep after dinner (dang malaria pills), so I read a lot from a really good book.
After returning from our morning drive, we took a nap (for 3 hours) and then packed up and left. We took the scenic drive to Skakuza. Along the way we stoped at the Lower Sabie gift shop, and also saw many more animals, including this elephant.
This elephant was busy eating and ramming this tree
Warthog! Male. These animals seem very scatterbrained.
This, my friend is a dung beetle, rolling his dung. There are 1800 species of dung beetles in Krueger. Note the other beetle that has gone belly-up.
Dung beetles move very fast, and they don't stop for anything. There's 4 main varieties of Dung beetles: 1) the roll-it-yourself kind 2) the bury-it-don't-roll-it kind 3) the I'm-never-gonna-stop-rolling it! kind and 4) the Johannesburg I'll-steal-your-dung kind.
The beetles use their hind legs to handle the dung, so this guy is actally upside down. The female plants the eggs in the dung, and the larve will hatch and grow to maturity INSIDE the dung, without ever coming out. That's why you'll never see a young dung beetle.
Nasty but strong bugs
This guy has got a neck problem, he's all bent over.
See, that's a busted neck if I ever saw one!
The vervet monkey.
Black face, with white hair outline. Notice what's holding on underneath...
A baby!
This guy's all ears
Momma and baby.
The African Elephant's society is matriarchal and herds are dominated by old females. They eat about 250kg (or 3.5 times my weight) of grass, leaves, bark etc every day. They have about the same life span as humans. Just imagine, 70+ years of eating grass, day after day....boring.
A little guy
Two decent sized elepants, crossing the road. Their tails are very strong and sound like whips. They whip the flies off themselves.
A small herd with some babies!
This one forgot to put his dentures in.
They have very tough, thick skin, which helps when they're pushing down trees and stomping on cars.
"I think this is a challenge!"
This elephant is more than twice as tall as the van.
Almost had an incident here. Wonder how he lost his other tusk...
Back to forraging.
And this guy was following us.
Female warthog
Hippos. They spend most of their day in the water and come out at night, so it was interesting to see these guys basking in the sun and forraging.
See the red-beaked bird on this giraffe? This is a Kurrikane thrush I think. Occasionally you will see these animals taking a ride on four-legged forragers. They eat the ticks and bugs out of their hair, so the animals don't mind.
Is he tasteing the bush?
Those horns are not really used for anything as far as I know. The name 'giraffe' is derived from the Arabid word 'zarafah' (the one who walks quickly). That long neck still has only 7 cervical vertebrae - the same number as all mammals, including humans. A lion can take down a full grown adult giraffe, which usually happens at water holes.
Rangeing impalas
Leopard Tortise?
A human, filming a tortise
A very young elephant.
Baby Impalas or Springbok
dueling impalas
