First Step to Greatness ❤️
This little boy is taking his first steps with the help of family in South Sudan. #wheredidyoutakeyourfirststeps?! Drop comments below!
Crocodiles and alligators use a powerful bite combined with a full-bodied twisting motion to disable, kill, and dismember prey into smaller pieces. This maneuver is known as the ”death roll” using their hind legs to generate more force they start rolling aggressively back to belly until tired.
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This deadly and violent death roll maneuver had only been documented in a few of the 25 living crocodilian species, but researchers found that this move is actually almost universal among all the species.
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Hippopotamuses have been the subjects of various African folktales. According to the San story; when the Creator assigned each animal it’s place in nature, the hippos wanted to live in the water, but were refused out of fear that they might eat all the fish. After begging and pleading, the hippos were finally allowed to live in the water on the conditions that they would eat grass instead of fish and would fling their dung so that it can be inspected for fish bones. In a Ndebele tale, the hippo originally had long, beautiful hair, but was set on fire by a jealous hare and had to jump into a nearby pool. The hippo lost most of his hair and was too embarrassed to leave the water.
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Greaves, N.; Clement, R. (2000). When Hippo was Hairy: And Other Tales from Africa. Struik. pp. 67
Elephants exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition that has also been demonstrated in some apes and dolphins. One study of a captive female Asian elephant suggested the animal was capable of learning and distinguishing between several visual and some acoustic discrimination pairs. This individual was even able to score a high accuracy rating when re-tested with the same visual pairs a year later.
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Rensch, B. (1957). “The intelligence of elephants”. Scientific American. 196 (2): 44-49. Bibcode:1957SciAm.196b..44R. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0257-44.
The Mundari, like other nilotic tribes, are very cattle-oriented: cattle serves as food, a form of currency and a mark of status. Marriages are arranged by the prospective groom offering cattle to the bride’s family and husbands may take as many wives as they can support. The Mundari engage in perennial cattle raiding wars with the Bor Dinka during the dry season.
The Mundari also cultivate sorghum and catch fish using nets and spears.
In common with other nilotic tribes in Sudan, the Mundari practice ritual scarification as a rite of passage into adulthood for young men. The typical Mundari scar pattern consists of two sets of three parallel lines, each on either sides of the forehead, extending in a downward slope and unconnected in the middle
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#eldersandancestors
New Year post. Gotta love ❤️ our culture! Look at these babies dance.
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#HappyNewYear #happychildhood #HappyChildren
As with the other mustelids of large size, such as wolverines and badgers, honey badgers are notorious for their strength, ferocity and toughness. They have been known to savagely and fearlessly attack almost any kind of animal when escape is impossible, reportedly even repelling much larger predators such as lions. Bee stings, porcupine quills, and animal bites rarely penetrate their skin. If horses, cattle, or Cape buffalos intrude upon a ratel’s burrow, it will attack them. They are virtually tireless in combat and can wear out much larger animals in physical confrontations.
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Hunter, Luke (2011). Carnivores of the World. Princeton University Press.
Artistic depiction of African wild dogs are prominent on cosmetic palettes and other object from Egypt’s predynastic period, likely symbolizing order over chaos, as well as the transition between the wild (represented by the African golden wolf) and the domestic (represented by the dog). Predynastic hunters may have also identified with the African wild dog, as the Hunters Palette shows them wearing the animals’ tails on their belts. By the dynastic period, African wild dog illustrations become much less represented. •
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Hendrickx, S. (2006). The dog, the Lycaon pictus and order over chaos in Predynastic Egypt. Kroeper, K.; Chlodnicki, M. & Kobusiewicz, M. (eds.), Archeology of Early Northeastern Africa. Studies in African Archaeology 9. Poznań: Poznań Archaeological Museum: 723–749.
Little know facts about rhinos 🦏 •
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The black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes (diploid number, 2N, per cell), all other rhinoceros species have 82 chromosomes. However, chromosomal polymorphism might lead to varying chromosome counts. For instance, in a study there were three northern white rhinoceroses with 81 chromosomes.
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Houck, ML; Ryder, OA; Váhala, J; Kock, RA; Oosterhuis, JE (January - February 1994). “Diploid chromosome number and chromosomal variation in the white rhinoceros (Cerathotherium simum)”. The Journal of Heredity. 85 (1): 30–4
