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Kaokoveld Desert
The Kaokoveld Desert is a coastal desert of northern Namibia and southern Angola. Setting The Kaokoveld Desert occupies a coastal strip covering , from 13° to 21°S and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Namibian savanna woodlands to the east, and the Namib Desert to the south. It includes the Moçâmedes Desert of southern Angola. The Kaokoveld is a harsh desert of drifting sandunes and rocky mountains. It receives most of its rainfall during the summer, which distinguishes it from the adjacent Namib Desert to the south, which receives most of its rain during the winter. The Kunene River is the only permanent watercourse but many dry riverbeds (including the Hoanib, Hoarusib and Khumib Rivers) carry moisture through the desert and are home to animals including elephants, black rhinos, and giraffe. Other than those the area is ancient desert sand, moistened by occasional coastal fog. Flora The Kaokoveld is home to ''Welwitschia mirabilis'', a plant that has no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrotropical Realm
The Afrotropical realm is one of Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Africa south of the Sahara Desert, the majority of the Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region. Major ecological regions Most of the Afrotropic, with the exception of Africa's southern tip, has a tropical climate. A broad belt of deserts, including the Atlantic and Sahara deserts of northern Africa and the Arabian Desert of the Arabian Peninsula, separate the Afrotropic from the Palearctic realm, which includes northern Africa and temperate Eurasia. Sahel and Sudan South of the Sahara, two belts of tropical grassland and savanna run east and west across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands. Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel belt, a transitional zone of semi-arid short grassland and vachellia sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khumib River
The river Khumib is an ephemeral river crossing the Kunene Region of north-western Namibia. It occasionally carries surface water during the rainy seasons in November and February/March. Its catchment area is estimated between 2200 and . The Khumib has its origin near the settlement of Orupembe in the remote north-west of Kunene. From there the river course passes westwards to the Skeleton Coast and drains into the Namib Desert. It only occasionally discharges into the Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe .... References Rivers of Namibia Geography of Kunene Region {{Namibia-river-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deserts And Xeric Shrublands
Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this habitat type vary greatly in the amount of annual rainfall they receive, usually less than annually except in the margins. Generally evaporation exceeds rainfall in these ecoregions. Temperature variability is also diverse in these lands. Many deserts, such as the Sahara, are hot year-round, but others, such as East Asia's Gobi, become quite cold in winter. Temperature extremes are a characteristic of most deserts. High daytime temperatures give way to cold nights because there is no insulation provided by humidity and cloud cover. The diversity of climatic conditions, though quite harsh, supports a rich array of habitats. Many of these habitats are ephemeral in nature, reflecting the paucity and seasonality of available water. Woody-ste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afrotropical Ecoregions
The Afrotropical realm is one of Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Africa south of the Sahara Desert, the majority of the Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, southern Iran and extreme southwestern Pakistan, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region. Major ecological regions Most of the Afrotropic, with the exception of Africa's southern tip, has a tropical climate. A broad belt of deserts, including the Atlantic and Sahara deserts of northern Africa and the Arabian Desert of the Arabian Peninsula, separate the Afrotropic from the Palearctic realm, which includes northern Africa and temperate Eurasia. Sahel and Sudan South of the Sahara, two belts of tropical grassland and savanna run east and west across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands. Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel belt, a transitional zone of semi-arid short grassland and vachellia sav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iona National Park
Iona National Park (Portuguese: ) is the largest national park in Angola. It is situated in the Southwestern corner of the country, in Namibe Province. It is roughly bound by the Atlantic Ocean to the West, an escarpment to the East that marks the beginning of the interior plateau, the Curoca River to the North, and the Cunene River to the South. It is about south of the city of Namibe and covers sq. miles. The topography of Iona is characterised by shifting dunes, vast plains, and rough mountains and cliffs. Annual average precipitation is no more than 30 mm. The Curoca River is intermittent but has lagoons, while the Cunene is permanent and has marshy areas at its mouth. Iona was proclaimed as a reserve in 1937 and upgraded to a national park in 1964. However, as is true for most Angolan parks, the Angolan Civil War greatly disrupted the area. Poaching and the destruction of infrastructure have caused considerable damage to the once rich park. In recent years, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etosha National Park
Etosha National Park is a national park in northwestern Namibia and one of the largest national parks in Africa. It was proclaimed a game reserve in March 1907 in Ordinance 88 by the Governor of German South West Africa, Friedrich von Lindequist. It was designated as ''Wildschutzgebiet'' in 1958, and was elevated to the status of a national park in 1967 by an act of parliament of the Republic of South Africa. It spans an area of and gets its name from the large Etosha pan which is almost entirely within the park. With an area of , the Etosha pan covers 23% of the total area of the national park. The area is home to hundreds of species of mammals, birds and reptiles, including several threatened and endangered species such as the black rhinoceros. The park is located in the Kunene region and shares boundaries with the regions of Oshana, Oshikoto and Otjozondjupa. History Areas north of the Etosha pan were inhabited by Ovambo people, while various Otjiherero-speaking groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skeleton Coast National Park
Skeleton Coast National Park is a national park located in northwest Namibia, and has the most inaccessible shores, dotted with shipwrecks. The park was established in 1971 and has a size of .Shollenbarger, MariaMars on Earth: Traveling Namibia's Skeleton Coast Conde Nast Traveler. January 25, 2018. The park is divided into a northern and southern section, the southern section is open to those with 4 wheel drive vehicles, they are allowed to go up (north) as far as the Ugab River Gate (where a sign with a skull and crossbones warns you to go no further). The northern section can only be reached by a fly-in safari, and the area is off-limits to all vehicles. The list of tourist attractions in the park includes a shipwreck at the South West Seal viewpoint, Huab lagoon and the collapsed oil drilling rig. Springbok Gate.jpg, Springbok Gate, the eastern entry Ugabmund_Gate.jpg, Ugabmund Gate (Ugab River Gate), the southern entry Collapsed_oil_drilling_rig.jpg, Collapsed oil drilling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glaucestrilda Thomensis
The Cinderella waxbill (''Glaucestrilda thomensis'') is a near-threatened species of estrildid finch found in drier regions of south-western Angola around Namibe Province, north and east to south-west Huila Province and north to Fazenda do Cuito in Huambo and extreme north-western Namibia. It has an estimated global distribution of 95,700 km2. Habitat The Cinderella waxbill is found in subtropical and tropical (lowland) dry shrubland, savannah and forest habitats at altitude of 200 to 500 m. It is observed that the recent development of a hydroelectric plant on the Cunene River at Epupa Falls has caused changes to insect biodiversity Insect biodiversity accounts for a large proportion of all biodiversity on the planet—over half of the estimated 1.5 million organism species described are classified as insects. Species diversity Estimates of the total number of insect species ... which were relied on by the Cinderella waxbill during feeding of its young. Thus threat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giraffa Camelopardalis
The northern giraffe (''Giraffa camelopardalis''), also known as three-horned giraffe,Linnaeus, C. (1758)The Nubian or Three-horned giraffe (''Giraffa camelopardalis'').Existing Forms of Giraffe (February 16, 1897): 14. is the type species of giraffe, ''G. camelopardalis'', and is native to North Africa, although alternative taxonomic hypotheses have proposed the northern giraffe as a separate species. Once abundant throughout Africa since the 19th century, Northern giraffes ranged from Senegal, Mali and Nigeria from West Africa to up north in Egypt. The similar West African giraffes lived in Algeria and Morocco in ancient periods until their extinctions due to the Saharan dry climate. Giraffes collectively are considered Vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with around 97,000 wild individuals alive in 2016, of which 5,195 are Northern giraffes. Taxonomy and evolution The current IUCN taxonomic scheme lists one species of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diceros Bicornis
The black rhinoceros, black rhino or hook-lipped rhinoceros (''Diceros bicornis'') is a species of rhinoceros, native to eastern and southern Africa including Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Although the rhinoceros is referred to as ''black'', its colours vary from brown to grey. The other African rhinoceros is the white rhinoceros (''Ceratotherium simum''). The word "white" in the name "white rhinoceros" is often said to be a misinterpretation of the Afrikaans word ' (Dutch ') meaning wide, referring to its square upper lip, as opposed to the pointed or hooked lip of the black rhinoceros. These species are now sometimes referred to as the square-lipped (for white) or hook-lipped (for black) rhinoceros. The species overall is classified as critically endangered (even though the south-western black rhinoceros is classified as near threatened). Three subspecies have been declared extinct, including the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Elephant
Desert elephants or desert-adapted elephants are not a distinct species of elephant but are African bush elephants (''Loxodonta africana'') that have made their homes in the Namib and Sahara deserts in Africa. At one time they were classified as a subspecies of the African bush elephant, but this is no longer the case. Desert-dwelling elephants were once more widespread in Africa than they are now and are currently found only in Namibia and Mali. They tend to migrate from one waterhole to another following traditional routes which depend on the seasonal availability of food and water. They face pressure from poaching and from changes in land use by humans. Namibia The Kunene Region in the northwest of Namibia is an area of mostly sandy desert, rocky mountains and stony plains which covers about . Elephants have traditionally lived in this area and in the earlier part of the 20th century there were about 3,000 in the Kunene Region. By the 1980s these had greatly diminished in numb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welwitschia Mirabilis
''Welwitschia'' is a monotypic gymnosperm genus, comprising solely the distinctive ''Welwitschia mirabilis'', endemic to the Namib desert within Namibia and Angola. ''Welwitschia'' is the only living genus of the family Welwitschiaceae and order Welwitschiales in the division Gnetophyta, and is one of three living genera in Gnetophyta, alongside ''Gnetum'' and ''Ephedra''. Informal sources commonly refer to the plant as a "living fossil". Naming ''Welwitschia'' is named after the Austrian botanist and doctor Friedrich Welwitsch, who described the plant in Angola in 1859. Welwitsch was so overwhelmed by the plant that he, "could do nothing but kneel down ..and gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it a figment of the imagination." Joseph Dalton Hooker of the Linnean Society of London, using Welwitsch's description and collected material along with material from the artist Thomas Baines who had independently recorded the plant in Namibia, described the species. Wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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