Animals & Gardens

Highlights

To protect themselves from strong winds and the glaring sun during the day, addax dig ‘beds’ into the sand with their forefeet in which they rest, often in the shade of boulders or bushes.

Heavily built with short legs and long spiraled horns on both sexes. Coat color is white in summer, darkening gradually in winter. On the forehead is a tuft of dense black hair which resembles a toupe’. A band of white hair forms an “X” across the nose.

They are most active from dusk until dawn. Superbly adapted to desert conditions and can go most of their lives without drinking water. They get moisture from plants and the dew which collects on them during evening and early morning. Their light color helps to deflect heat from sun; their broad, flat hooves facilitate travel on desert sands. Daily variation in body temperature reduces the need for evaporative cooling, thus conserving water.

Highlights

African painted dogs’ large, round ears allow for excellent hearing that is vital to the pack hunt, but they also serve as radiators of heat in a hot climate.

African painted dogs are pack animals. Females leave the pack when mature and males typically stay with their pack.

Their unique coat patterns, specialize pack communication and teamwork have made them one of the most successful hunters in all of Africa, with a 70%-90% rate of success.

African painted dogs are threatened mainly by habitat loss, which has led to human-wildlife conflict. Painted dogs are also susceptible to diseases carried by domestic dogs, such as distemper and parvovirus. The Living Desert actively supports African painted dog conservation efforts through the Painted Dog Conservation organization.

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The Amur leopard is one of many species of animal that zoos are conserving through captive breeding.

The Amur leopard is the most northerly subspecies of the leopard species that occurs over most of Africa and southern Asia. It has a tawny-gold coat patterned with the distinctive black rosettes common in all leopards. The head, lower limbs and belly are covered with these solid black rosettes. Leopards eat just about any animal they can catch, including birds, hares, beetles, baboons or deer. Their principal predator is man, who hunts them for sport and their spotted pelts.

Leopards are solitary except during the mating season. Only females raise the young, litters of two to four cubs born after a gestation is approximately 96 days. Cubs remain with their mother for 18 to 24 months, when they become independent.

Hunting mainly at night, they stalk and ambush their prey by waiting in a tree until their quarry is within striking distance, then attack with a short burst of speed, grabbing their victim and strangling it. They are very strong and will often drag their kill up into a tree. This allows them to eat their meal at leisure, away from other large predators. Leopards have also been known to eat carrion.

Highlights

They are often called the “unicorn of the desert”, because, when you look at them from the side, they appear to have only one horn.

One of the grazing antelopes, this smallest oryx has a white body with black markings on the face and legs. Their horns, which measure up to 2 1/2 feet long, are nearly straight and their hooves are splayed and shovel-like.

They eat whatever vegetation is available, feeding mainly at night when it is most succulent. They do not need to drink free water, getting their moisture from plants and occasionally digging hollows under rocks and bushes with horns and hooves for shade. Before becoming extinct in the wild, they were preyed upon by Striped Hyenas, Arabian Wolves, Lions, and Bedouins. Herds usually consist of 10 to 20 animals, with one dominant male mating with the females.

As true desert specialists, they survive through several adaptations, such as remaining in the shade during the daytime; excavating scrapes in shady ground and lying down to offload body heat to the cooler sand and reduce body surface exposed to drying winds. Their temperatures can rise to 113F without ill effects and no valuable water is wasted by sweating or panting. Oryx may travel 10 to 20 miles at night to new feeding areas.

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Although dwarf and banded mongoose are cousins with similar traits, these African animals have unique characteristics all their own.

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The bat-eared fox is possibly named after the Egyptian slit-faced fruit bat, which also has ears that are large in proportion to its head.

Their coats are yellowish-brown with brown feet and ear tips and blackish brown faces. Their legs are relatively short, and tails bushy, darkening in color towards the tip and their ears are approximately 5 inches long.

They are the only canids that prefer insects to mammalian prey. Eighty percent of their diet consists of insects, particularly harvester termites and dung beetles, as well as fruits, scorpions and an occasional small mammal or bird. They are hunted by native peoples for their pelts and meat and also by carnivores such as the black-backed jackal, slender mongoose and brown hyena.

Bat-eared foxes usually breed in pairs, giving birth in self-dug dens. But single males may breed with two females and two or three breeding dens may be clustered within a few hundred meters, where soil and vegetation are suitable. After a 60-70 day gestation period, two to five pups are born. Juveniles achieve adult size at 4 months, when they begin to accompany adults on foraging trips. Groups can include up to 12 foxes.

Highlights

Black rhinos are not black at all, but rather dark gray. They are constantly coated in a mud coat to help keep them cool and prevent insect bites.

Black rhino are browsers and have a prehensile upper lip that allows them to easily eat trees and shrubs. They are more solitary than other rhino species; however, females can be found at watering holes, while males stay alone.

Together, a group if rhinos is called a ‘crash’. Although rhinos have poor eyesight, they communicate with each other through vocalizations, sneezes, and by scent. Black rhinos are not black at all, but rather dark gray. They are constantly coated in a mud coat to help keep them cool and prevent insect bites.

Rhinos mothers are very attentive and protective of their calves. Rhino calves stay with their mothers for up to four years. Black rhino have two horns that are made of keratin – the same material as human fingernails, animal hooves, bird feathers and beaks, and reptile and fish scales. Threat: Poaching for their horns, illegal wildlife trade.

Highlights

They cannot shoot their quills.

They are mostly vegetarians, feeding on wild roots, bulbs, berries and other plants. In cultivated areas they eat groundnuts, potatoes, pumpkins, melons and maize. Lions have been known to prey on Cape Porcupine.

Adults grow to 25-29 inches long and weigh from 20-66 pounds. The quills on the neck and back are black and white and the tips of the tail quills can range up to 20 inches long. They make a rattling sound when the porcupine feels threatened. It is sometimes called a crested porcupine because some quills can be erected into a crest, which starts at the top of the head and extends to the shoulder.

Females produce 2 to 3 litters of 1 or 2 young every year, in a grass-lined burrow. Babies are covered with bristles and soft quills which harden a few hours after birth. The mother nurses them from teats located on the sides of her body, away from her quills.

When attacked or annoyed, porcupines raise their quills and rattle them vigorously to scare off predators. They may charge sideways or backward, detaching quills into the flesh of the attacker. Once barbed quills enter the skin, they are almost impossible to remove and the wounds become infected, eventually killing the attacker.

In just a few strides, a cheetah can run as fast as a car on the freeway. While running, the cheetah’s flat-shaped tail acts like the rudder of a boat, allowing swift turns midair with superior steering and balance.

After catching their prey, cheetahs must recover and eat quickly to avoid other predators that may drive them away from their meal.

Cheetahs are primarily threatened by habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict. The Living Desert actively participates in cheetah conservation in the international Cheetah Public Engagement program for the Saving Species From Extinction Program and a number of international cheetah conservation organizations