Namibian’s think so highly of the gemsbok, or Oryx gazella that their national coat of arms depicts two of these magnificent animals on either side of a shield covered with the national flag – representing courage, elegance and pride.  If you see these antelope in their desert surroundings, you will understand why they hold such a prominent place in the hearts of all Namibians.

We come across them often in our travels in Namibia and Botswana and they never fail to give us a thrill when we see them.  Their coats vary in colour from light grey to light brown, with patches of white, highlighted by dramatic black lines on their backs, legs and faces. These striking markings are offset by long straight horns that are sported by both males and females – the female’s horns being slightly thinner and longer.

Gemsbok can survive in harsh semi-desert conditions and dry savannah areas as they have adapted to tolerate heat better than other antelopes.  Able to withstand temperatures in excess of 45 degrees C they use rapid breathing to cool the blood that passes through their noses.  This cooler blood is transported to their brains and their body temperature is brought down a few degrees.

They are able to survive for long periods without water. Like most antelopes, they are mainly grazers, but they also eat tsamma melons, bulbs and tubers, which add moisture and fibre to their diet.  During the day gemsbok mostly try and find a shady tree to stand under, as they prefer feeding early in the morning, evening and sometimes during the night, when temperatures are cooler.

Lions,  hyenas and dogs are their main predators, apart from humans, who hunt them for trophies or meat.  We came across a lion kill in the Central Kalahari last year, where a pride of lions had brought down a gemsbok.

The lions guarded their kill very jealously because a large number of black-backed jackals  were keen to get any pickings that they could.

Gemsbok give birth to a single calf, arriving at any time during the year, after a nine month gestation period.  The calf is usually hidden for the first few weeks of its life before it joins the rest of the herd.  The baby’s horns grow very quickly, giving rise to the myth that gemsbok are born with horns, which obviously isn’t true.  As can be seen from the photo below, the baby is brown with very few markings.

Wherever we see them – in the sand dunes of Sossusvlei, the savannah grasslands of Botswana or the arid rocky Etosha game reserve, they remain one of our absolute favourite animals and we always admire their grace and beauty.

Earth consciousness has been practised by indigenous people for many centuries, often through meditation and reflection on their simple lives and surroundings.  Their attunement to nature is borne out by quotes and sayings of the wise ones passed down through the ages.  We can be grateful for these pearls of wisdom that are so applicable in our rushed lives right now.

As one who loves to meditate in quiet, peaceful places, let me share some beautiful spaces with you as we ponder on the wisdom of people gone by.

Honor the sacred
Honor the Earth, our Mother
Honor the Elders
Honor all with whom we  share the Earth
Four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones
Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people
Walk in balance and beauty

Native American Elder

Earth  Teach Me

Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain

A Ute Prayer

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

Ancient Indian Proverb

Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.

Chief Seattle, 1854

When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.

Cree Prophecy

Have a beautiful, peaceful and reflective day!

Okay! I know that I’ve got the expression wrong and that it should be the famous phrase “Shiver me timbers” as exclaimed by Long John Silver, the pirate in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island, but I thought it was quite a fitting heading for my blog about quiver trees in Namibia.

Quiver trees are so unusual that they do cause one to call out in an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, so do forgive me for my moment of poetic license.

Actually, apart from my incorrect exclamation, there is another error in the paragraph above in that quiver trees are not really trees at all, but are members of the aloe family.  Their scientific name is Aloe dichotoma Masson – dichotoma referring to their forked branches.  This close up photo of the leaves dispels any doubt that they are aloe plants.

However, for the sake of this blog I will call them trees as that’s exactly what they look like.  In Afrikaans they are known as “kokerbome” (koker meaning quiver and bome meaning trees).   And they are known as quiver trees because the San Bushmen used to carve their arrow quivers from the soft, pulpy branches.

These remarkable trees are found in the dry and arid areas of Namibia and the Northern Cape of South Africa as they prefer rocky or hard terrain for their shallow root systems.  They store water in their stems, leaves or roots to enable them to survive for months without rain.  You can see from the various photos in this blog which of the trees has received the most water.  Those that receive little or none are very ‘lean’, whilst the others are positively bloated!

The stems of quiver trees are decorated with golden brown flaky scales and beautiful vertical patterns which make them very photogenic.

Quiver trees can grow up to nine meters tall.  They bear spiky yellow flowers during the winter months of June/July, but not before they are at least twenty years old.  The trees produce a fine white powder that acts as a sunscreen by reflecting the harsh desert sunlight.

Seen standing alone in a vast barren landscape, they have an almost eerie appearance, but to me they represent the desert that I love so much.   They are usually seen individually, dotted here and there on open plains or hillsides, but there are a couple of quiver tree forests that are well worth visiting.  The famous quiver tree forest in Namibia is near Keetmanshoop down in the south of the country, and there is another beautiful one on the short-cut between the Onseepkans border post and Kakamas in the Northern Cape.

I’m not the only one who loves these trees – they are often home to sociable weavers that build enormous nests in their secure branches.   So watch out for these fascinating trees on your next visit to Namibia – they definitely deserve a place on your list of things to see.

]]> http://www.wilkinsonsworld.com/2010/07/quiver-me-timbers/feed/ 0 http://www.wilkinsonsworld.com/2010/06/namibias-castles-of-sand/ http://www.wilkinsonsworld.com/2010/06/namibias-castles-of-sand/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:15:45 +0000 Jane http://www.wilkinsonsworld.com/?p=2928
As regular visitors to the central areas of Namibia, north of Windhoek, we have always been fascinated by the enormous termite mounds that dominate the landscape.  We were fortunate enough, on a recent guided hike in the Waterberg, to gather some information about these remarkable structures and their creators, the Macrotermes michaelseni. The termites don’t actually [...]]]>

As regular visitors to the central areas of Namibia, north of Windhoek, we have always been fascinated by the enormous termite mounds that dominate the landscape.  We were fortunate enough, on a recent guided hike in the Waterberg, to gather some information about these remarkable structures and their creators, the Macrotermes michaelseni.

The termites don’t actually live in the towering structures, but have their nests about a meter or so beneath the ground.  Extensive studies have shown that the mounds are built to assist with the ventilation of the subterranean nests and to maintain and regulate the temperature needed to keep the termites alive.  The mounds are in a constant state of repair and adaptation to keep up with the needs of the colony.

The termite colony consists of  a king, a queen, numerous workers and a few soldiers. The queen lives in a queen cell that is only accessible by small portholes, through which the workers remove her eggs (which she lays every three seconds), her waste and bring her food.  The soldier termites have distinct cutters to assist with their food gathering duties.

One of the amazing features of the termites is their symbiotic relationship with a certain fungus, Termitomyces, the culture of which makes a compost of the digested grass, wood and waste from the termites and recycles it into food for them.  At the same time, the fungal spores produced grow into enormous mushrooms, known locally as Omajowa.  These mushrooms sprout at the base of the mounds during the rainy season and can weigh up to a kilogram each.  Neither the fungus nor the termites could exist without each other.  The Omajowa mushrooms are harvested by the locals, who eat them as a replacement for meat, or sell them to earn some income.

We were also told that the indigenous tribes use the sand from disused termite mounds to build their huts.  The red sand is mixed with cow dung to form clay for their walls.

Although for the most part the termites are useful in nature, they are also quite a destructive force, as once they build their nests around trees, the trees usually die off, as can be seen from the photo above of a covered branch.

It’s common to see animals and birds on the termite hills – obviously a good look-out place to watch the world go by!!

We’ve all heard the expression “he’s so ugly only his mother could love him!”  Well, I think the saying originated when man got his first glimpse of a warthog.  These denizens of the African bushveld, with wart-like bumps and course whiskers on their flat elongated faces, are downright ugly.

Warthogs are found south of the Sahara and are all over Namibia.  They’re mostly seen grazing at the side of the road in small groups.  Their solid little bodies are a real hazard to traffic and hitting one in a fast-moving vehicle is not recommended, hence the need for warning road signs wherever they are prevalent.

Warthogs are supposed to have poor sight, but if you stop at the side of the road to photograph them, they run off at high speed with their tails in the air.  Either their eyesight is better than we think or they have an inbuilt radar system to warn them of our presence.  Their hearing and sense of smell is apparently very good.

They can exist on very little water, but if there is water around they drink regularly. They love to wallow in mud or roll in sand so are mostly seen caked in dirt.

They live in burrows, usually those already dug by aardvarks, and if they are threatened, they slide backwards into their holes so that they can defend themselves with their tusks, which both males and females have.  Their main predators are leopards and lions, so they aren’t under threat very often.

We met this tame little warthog at a campsite recently.  It was about six months old and had been hand-reared.  He was a talkative little fellow and grunted his way through a long conversation with me, between attempts at untying my shoelaces and nibbling my jeans!

Litters are limited to four babies, as female warthogs only have four teats and the young suckle from their own teat for at least four months.  When grazing they bend their well-padded and calloused front knees to enable them to pick up food from the ground.  Their diet consists of grass, seeds, bulbs and tubers.

The scientific name for a warthog is Phacochoerus aethiopicus.  I’m not sure of the direct translation of that name – perhaps it is ‘ugly of uglies!”

Everyone is familiar with measles, mumps, rubella and the like. These are minor, mostly childhood infections that are well under medical control and no longer a real threat to anyone with reasonable access to medical care. So, forget about those. Africa faces bigger challenges from bugs; from really small bugs to the somewhat larger.

The bite of the mosquito can transmit Plasmodium falciparum and cause malaria. The bite of the tstetse fly can transmit Trypanosoma brucei and cause sleeping sickness. The bite of a meercat can transmit the Lyssavirus that causes rabies. Tramping on a rusty nail can result in an infection with Clostridium tetani and cause tetanus. The list is endless and the threats diverse, and each infection is costly to treat.

But none is as costly as the infection with Peregrinatio cimex. Spread through exposure to the magnificent scenery; the blue skies by day and the star-filled skies at night; the wonderful assortment of animals and the incredibly diverse people, Peregrinatio cimex is deadly. Although physically painless, it eats up the family budget rapidly and is no respecter of pension funds, college funds or any other jealously hoarded sum of money identified for some well-conceived, all-important objective. For Peregrinatio cimex is the Travel Bug.

A bite by the Travel Bug will lead to all manner of new experiences, including exposure to more bugs. Some of the larger bugs that will be encountered are interesting and less destructive than those referred to in the first paragraph; some are even large enough to be photographed. Let’s look at a few.

Here we have the fierce-looking (but harmless) Koringkriek, or Armoured Ground Cricket.  In some areas of Namibia there are armies of these wandering on the paths at certain times of the year, migrations may be seen crossing the road, many losing their lives under the rolling rubber of passing vehicles.

Then there are scorpions.  These little creatures have tails that curve up over their backs and their poison is potent enough to ruin a holiday.  It is always advisable to wear closed shoes after dark when they are most active.

And the infamous camel spider.  This  nasty little beast has a number of aliases because it isn’t really a spider at all, but a solifigud (a rather awkward name which apparently means ‘escaping from the sun’).  Also known as a sun spider or wind scorpion, this is not a gogga to mess with.  It moves very quickly and often appears to run after someone walking in the sun, although what it is really doing is looking for shade.  We were terrorized by camel spiders on Christmas night at Khamkirri on the Orange River (and it wasn’t only the ladies who were climbing on chairs!)

This first picture is of a female camel spider –

The male is much smaller and has a very ferocious-looking face.  Love the red hair!!!

On a larger scale and perfectly harmless, but a bit alarming to find climbing on your chair is the Turner’s Tubercled Gecko (not a bug per se but it falls into the creepy crawlie class).

In fact folding camping chairs seem to be magnets for bugs.  Put a hand on this hairy caterpillar and you could spend the next hour getting rid of its prickly hairs.

Post script:
For those with a scientific bent, the binomial Peregrinatio cimex derives from the Latin “Peregrinatio” meaning “travel” and the Latin “cimex” meaning “bug”. The Travel Bug. Of course it doesn’t really exist (as if you thought it did!), but doesn’t it make a wonderful excuse for all those rather expensive and pointless excursions?

I’m always excited to come across Agamas  and lizards on our travels.  They are usually such colourful subjects to photograph, but even those that lack colour are still fascinating because of their beautiful scales, spines and armoury, which the camera captures so well!  We are lucky in Southern Africa to have such a huge variety of these little reptiles so my delight is bound to be ongoing as we come across more and more on our journeys  around the country.

Agamas are quite common in Namibia, especially in the rocky areas, although there are arboreal and terrestrial Agamas as well.  In Southern Africa there are eleven species, all quite similar in appearance but with different colours and marking.  They tend to camouflage themselves by picking up the colour of the substrate they inhabit, however when they are breeding they are brightly coloured and it is easy to distinguish between the males and females. Did you know that Agamas can change their colours much like a chameleon does, with males being able to change themselves to resemble females when they are in danger?

The diet of the Namibian Rock Agama (Agama planiceps) consists mainly of insects – predominantly ants and termites.

Females lay between 5 and 18 eggs in the middle of summer and these take about two months to hatch.   Don’t you love the ferocious mock teeth markings on her lips?  Very scary!!

Tree Agamas (Acanthocercus atricollis) usually have large blue heads and their diet consists of flying insects like grasshoppers, beetles and other goggas that inhabit the bark of trees.

Although I photographed this albino-like Agama in a tree, it’s colouring is a mystery to me and I’m not sure whether it is a rock or tree Agama.  It could be a juvenile still getting its colours, or an adult doing its chameleon camouflage trick!

In central Namibia we came across this attractive Jordans Girdled Lizard.  Girdled lizards need the warmth of the sun to raise their body temperature, so they are known as heliotherms and as a result they are diurnal.   They tend to eat anything that they can catch which means that their diet is wide and varied, even including vegetation if no insects or small invertebrates can be found.  Note how well he blends into his environment.

This Black Girdled lizard (Cordylus niger) was basking in the sun at Langebaan in the Western Cape.  Its dark colour serves the purpose of allowing it to absorb heat more effectively because it lives in an environment that has a lot of rain and mist.

Finally, I’ll end off with a magnificent specimen of an Augrabies Flat Lizard (Platysaurus broadleyi), which, as its name suggests, was found in the Augrabies Falls area in the Northern Cape.

Unlike their girdled cousins, flat lizards have smooth skin that has an almost velvet finish.  They also need the sun to initiate activity and then they spend their day searching for food, basking or interacting with other lizards.  Flat lizards tend to live on rocks as these quickly heat up bringing the lizards to their preferred temperature.

Africa is not called the ‘dark continent’ for nothing.  It is a continent of dark secrets and legends. The legends cover not only the people, but the animals, rivers and trees.  And the tree with more legends hanging on its branches than baubles on a Christmas tree has to be the enormous Baobab (Adansonia digitata), found in just about every country south of the equator.

I personally love Baobabs and feel so excited whenever we come across them on our travels.   They transport me back to my childhood in Zimbabwe where I had the utmost reverence for these giant gnarled, funny-looking ‘upside down’ trees.  To me they represent Africa and mystery, and I’m obviously not the only one from whom similar feelings are evoked.

Any number of legends abound about Baobabs, from their origins to their magical powers.  Every tribe has their own version of the good and bad things associated with Baobabs – which is why they are so venerated and feared.  Many believe that benevolent spirits and ancestors dwell in them, whilst others fear the more malevolent spirits of both the trees and their Gods.  Offerings of food and gifts are placed near the trees to pacify angry spirits or to show gratitude for bountiful harvests.  Rituals are held in hollowed out Baobab trunks, with drums being beaten and prayers offered up for protection, and communication is made with dead ancestors and spirits.  Animals seek shelter in them and up to forty people have been known to crowd into one hollow trunk.

In northern Namibia Baobabs are even responsible for keeping the environment clean, for legend has it that anyone who pollutes the area around a Baobab will be engulfed in its large trunk.  He or she can only be rescued by a hardworking woodpecker (and this is highly unlikely as woodpeckers apparently resent humans for tearing down trees without asking their permission first) or by a hornless mooing black cow, which is extremely hard to find.  The natives often say they hear victims crying in the trees.  This ties up with yet another urban legend that has the evil spirits lying in wait amongst the branches.  If one listens up close to the trunk one can hear the spirits laughing inside (a noise most likely caused by bees nesting in the hollow trunk).

In Botswana the Bushmen believe that the flowers, which only bloom for one day, are inhabited by spirits and if  anyone has the audacity to pluck one  they are sure to be eaten by a lion!  Yet other Bushmen believe that one’s fate for such a crime is to be eaten by a tick.  If Bushmen are hunting an animal and it passes under a Baobab tree, the hunt is immediately stopped and another animal killed to preserve the life of the one that received the protection of the tree.

There are many different versions of the origin of the tree,  like God being angry because when he planted the tree in the earth it kept on walking, so he uprooted it and threw it onto the ground upside down.  It didn’t die but continued to live with its roots in the air. Yet others believe that the God, Thora, flung the Baobab down from paradise (because it was always complaining) and it landed on earth upside down.  Its elephant-like appearance apparently came about because its maternal creator was startled by an elephant when she was making the tree and it assumed the grotesque shape and dimensions of this large animal.

Talking of dimensions, Baobabs can reach heights of twenty meters and have trunks with a diameter of twelve meters. Their trunks, which absorb vast amounts of water (up to 120 000 liters in an adult tree), vary considerably in size during the dry and rainy seasons.  Because of its watery properties, as well as the food that one can get from it (Cream of Tartar), the Baobab is also known as the ‘tree of life.’  Providing shelter, medicine, rope, cloth and protection it is no wonder that it is held in such high esteem by the people of Africa.  In addition, if one drinks the water that seeds have been soaked in, one is guaranteed not to be eaten by a crocodile!

When the South African army was present in Katimo Mulilo in the Caprivi region of Namibia during the Bush War, they held no reverence or fear of the mighty tree as they fitted a flush toilet into one, thereby defiantly showing the world what they thought the of the superstitions and legends.  The tree had the last laugh though, as its trunk grew over the door, making it difficult to open.

“He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was: ‘Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!’”

Congratulations if you recognized that quote from the short story in “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling, a description of the heroic Rikki-Tikki-Tavi that leads a short while later to the graphic description of the little mongoose’s fight-to-the-death with Nag, the cobra. No prizes for knowing who won! Written well over a hundred years ago, the Jungle Book remains an absolute classic.

The story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is, of course, set in India, but Namibia too has an abundance of mongooses.

We are always interested to see which of our blogs attract the largest number of hits, and one of the most searched items is the humble mongoose!  This is quite surprising as a mongoose is not a  particularly exciting animal to look at, but obviously it generates a lot of interest on the Internet.

These little mammals are quite common in Namibia and we even see them in the grounds of our townhouse complex on the outskirts of Windhoek.  The most common variety in this area is the yellow mongoose, easily distinguished by its light yellowish coloured coat and the white tip on its tail.  They are very shy animals and will scurry away quickly, or duck into whatever shelter is closest, as one approaches   We often see them in pairs when we go on our walks to the nearby Avis Dam.

Further north at Etosha, in the Caprivi region and on the eastern border of Namibia the banded mongoose is more common, very similar in looks to the slender mongoose, except that it has a number of stripes on its back.

This creature, unlike its cousin the yellow mongoose, prefers woodland and riverine forest as its habitat.  It also breeds during the summer months and has between two and eight young.   The gestation period for all breeds of mongoose is approximately eight weeks.  Their diet consists of lizards, beetles, termites, birds eggs, mice and fruit.

Eggs present no real challenge.and the mongoose will often pick up the egg in its front paws and then slam it  onto a rock or onto the ground to break it open.

At the Harness Wildlife Foundation we were amused to see dozens of slender mongooses follow the voluntary helpers around at feeding time – it looked like a scene out of  the Pied Piper of Hamelin!

They are extremely sociable animals and live in groups of twenty or more.

We unfortunately don’t have photographs of yet another variety of mongoose found in Namibia, namely the black mongoose, due to it’s elusiveness and rarity.  The black mongoose is endemic to Namibia and is found mainly in the Erongo mountains.  Not much is known about this species so a number of scientists are conducting studies on the black mongoose at the moment.  We have seen them on three different occasions, which makes us feel extremely priviliged.