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Kenya African wild life- 15 most sought after animals in Kenya Parks
Kenya African animal parks experience is one of the best in the world. You will get a chance of seeing the big five Kenya animals including monkeys, elephants, birds, hyena giraffe, jackals, mongooses, leopard, wild dogs and other Kenya animal. In Kenya you follow animal tracks, listen to sounds and get to eating an animal.Kenya Carnivores
1. Pangolin
Ground pangolins are covered with large rounded scales over the back and tail, and have a sparse covering of hair on the face and under belly. Pangolins (which are also known as scaly ant eaters) walk on the outer edges of their paws with their claws pointed inwards, leaving a distinctive track.
Distribution: Through out Kenya, apart from North east, in many habitats except dense forest.
2. Jackals
Golden jackals are often the most numerous carnivores in open savannah and are very active by day. Black –backed jackals have a mantle of silver grey hair and black-tipped tails; they are the most common night scavengers. Side stripped jackals are grey with a light stripe along each side and a white-tipped tail.
All have a similar social and feeding behaviour. Pairs are long- lasting and defend small territories.
Distribution: Through out Kenya, preferring open plains and woodlands; side stripped jackal most abundant in well-watered wooded areas.
3. Bat eared fox
The se little foxes eat mainly insects, especially termites, but also wild fruit and small vertebrates. They are monogamous and are often seen in groups comprising a mated pair and offspring. Natural enemies include large birds of prey, spotted hyena s caracals and larger cats.
They will bravely attempt to rescue a family member caught by a predator by using distraction techniques and harassment, which extends to nipping larger enemies on the ankles.
Distribution: Through out Kenya; absent from mountainous habitat and dense forest.
4. Wild Dogs
Wild dogs’ blotched black, yellow and white coat, and their large round ears, is unmistakable. They live in packs of up to 40 though usually 12 to 20.
They are widely reviled for eating their prey alive, but this is probably as fast as ‘cleaner’ methods used by other carnivores. Mid-sized antelopes are their preferred prey, but wild dogs can take animals as large as buffaloes.
They require enormous areas of habitat and they are amongst the most endangered carnivores in Africa.
Distribution: Much reduced, now restricted to the largest protected areas, including Tsavo National park.
5. Cape clawless Otter
Similar to European otters, but much larger, cape clawless otters are a glossy chocolate brown with a white or cream –coloured lower face, throat and neck. Only the hind feet are webbed, and, unlike the front feet of most otters, the front feet of cape clawless otters end in dexterous human-like fingers with rudimentary nails.
Otters are active during early morning and evening, through they become nocturnal in areas where they are hunted by humans. Their main foods include fish, fresh water crabs and frogs.
Distribution: Large fresh water bodies and along coastlines across Kenya.
6. Honey Badger (Ratel)
Pugnacious and astonishingly powerful for their size, honey badgers have a fascinating relationsihip with honey guide birds. Honey guides lead them to bees’ nests, which honey badgers rip open for honey, and in doing so provide honey guides access to their favoured food-beeswax.
Honey badgers are omni-vorous, feeding on small animals, carrion, berries, roots, eggs, honey and social insects (ants, termites and bees) and their larvae. Honey badgers are best viewed in parks, where they sometimes scavenge from bins.
7. Genet
Relatives of mongooses, genets resemble slender domestic cats, with fox like faces. The two species can be differentiated by the tail tips-white in the small-spotted, black in the large spotted. The former also has a crest along the spine, which it raises when threatened.
All black individuals of both species may occur, particularly in mountainous regions. They hunt on land and in trees, feeding on rodents, birds, reptiles, eggs, insects and fruits. Gents deposit their droppings in latrines, usually in open sites.
Distribution: Throughout Kenya.
8. Mongoose
Many often small animals that dash in front of cars in Africa are mongooses. A few species, such as the dwarf mongoose (helogale parvula) and the banded mongoose (mungos mungos) are intensely social, keeping contact with twittering calls while foraging.
Others, such as the slender mongoose-with a black-tipped tail that it holds aloft when running-and the white-tailed mongoose, are unusually solitary. Family groups are better at spotting danger and raising kittens. Invertebrates are their most important prey.
Distribution: Found through out Kenya. They prefer open areas to closed woodlands and wooded savanna.
9. Aardwolf
The smallest of the hyena family, aardwolves subsist almost entirely on harvester termites (which are generally ignored by other termite eaters because they are so noxious), licking more than 200,000 from the ground each night. Unlike other hyaenids, they don’t form clans; instead, they forage alone and mates form only loose associations with each other.
The male assists the female in raising the cubs, mostly by babysitting at the den while the mother forages. Aardwolves are persecuted in the mistaken belief that they kill stock.
Distribution: Widespread in savannah and woodland habitats from the south of Kenya into the country’s arid north.
10. Spotted Hyena
Widely reviled as scavengers, spotted hyenas are highly efficient predators with a fascinating social system. Females are larger than, and dominant to, males and have male physical characteristics, including an erectile clitoris that renders the sexes virtually indistinguishable. Spotted hyenas are massively built and appear distinctly canine, but they are more closely related to the cats than dogs. They can run at a speed of 60km/h and a pack can easily dispatch adult wildebeest and zebras. Their ‘ooo-oop’ call is one of the most distinctive East African night sounds.
Distribution: Increasingly restricted to conservation areas.
11. Serval
The first impression one gains of servals -tall, slender, long-legged cats-is that they look like small cheetahs. The tawny to russet-yellow coat has large black spots, forming long bars and blotches on the neck and shoulders.
All-black individuals do occasionally occur. Other distinguishing features include large upright ears, a long neck and a relatively short tail. Servals are associated with vegetation near water and are most common in floodplain savannah, wetlands and woodlands near streams.
Birds, small reptiles and occasionally the young of small antelopes are also taken.
Distribution: Well- watered habitats through out Kenya.
12. Caracal
Sometimes called African lynxes due to their long, tufted ears, caracals are robust, powerful cats that prey on small antelopes, birds and rodents but also take prey much larger than themselves.
Caracals are largely solitary, and although male-female pairs may associate more than most other cats, females raise their one to three kittens alone. The sandy body colour is excellent camouflage, but the ears and face are strikingly patterned in black and white and are highly mobile and expressive-features are used for visual signalling.
13. Leopard
Supreme ambush hunters, leopards stalk close to their prey before attacking in an explosive rush. They eat everything from insects to zebras, but antelopes are their primary prey. Leopards are highly agile and climb well, spending more time in trees than other big cats-
They hoist their kills into trees to avoid losing them to lions and hyenas. They are solitary animals, except when a male and female remain in close association for the female’s week long oestrus.
Distribution: Widely spread through out Kenya; of all the big cats, the most tolerant of human activity.
14. Lion
Lions spend the night hunting, patrolling territories (of 50 to 400sq km) and playing. They live in prides of up to about 30, comprising four to 12 related females, which remain in the pride for life, and a coalition of unrelated males, which defend females from foreign males. Lions hunt-certainly as a group, perhaps cooperatively-virtually anything, but wildebeests, zebras and buffaloes are their main targets.
Distribution: Largely confined to protected areas and present in all savannah and woodland parks in Kenya.
15. Cheetah
The worlds fastest land mammal, cheetahs can reach speeds of over 105km/h but become exhausted after a few hundred metres and therefore usually stalk their prey to within 60m before unleashing their tremendous acceleration.
Cheetahs prey on antelopes weighing up to 60kg as well as hares and young wildebeest and zebras. Litters may be as large as nine, but in open savannah habitats most cubs are killed by other predators, particularly lions. Young cheetahs disperse from the mother when aged around 18months. The males form coalitions; females remain solitary for life.
Distribution: Largely restricted to protected areas and surrounding regions; shuns densely forested areas.
Robert is a travel expert with Landmarksafaris.com. Degreed in tourism management, he has authored more than 1000 articles on Kenya East Africa travel. To find out what happens to you on your Lions of Tsavo safari, take the hook, line and sinker here |
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楼主: 136mydream
发表于 7-10-2010 22:31:06
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