Africa Wild

We could look at some record holders in terms of wildlife found in Southern Africa.

We all know about the most famous ones, such as cheetah.

But there are certainly some interesting finds that don't come to mind easily. So let's dig out the records holders.

The ostrich is the world’s largest 2-legged animal, growing up to 2,7m and weighing up to 160kg. It is also the fastest 2-legged, running at a speed of 70km/h. The ostrich’s weakness, however, is that it runs around in circles when alarmed, making it easy prey for attackers.

The antelope with the longest horns is the greater kudu. The horns have an average straightened length of 120cm, with the maximum being 187cm. Male greater kudu horns grow at just over a turn every 2 years.

Common Tern Sterna hirundo

Germany, July

Common Terns are indeed common, occurring along SA's entire coastline in summer, with a few immature birds present year-round. Maximum populations may reach 300,000-400,000 in summer, making this the most common coastal tern. The species breeds widely in North America and the Palearctic in the Northern Hemisphere summer (SA winter). Ring recoveries have shown that most of South African birds probably breed around the Baltic Sea, and especially Finland and Sweden. However, ringed birds have also shown connections between Southern Africa and Norway, Germany, the Nerherlands, Wales, Scotlat, France and Israel. Common Terns from Western Europe migrate down along the west coast of Africa, and those from further east along the East Coast.

Longest record flight ever: A bird was ringed in June 1996 in Finland and was recaptured 26,000 km away in Victoria, Australia in January 1997. It had travalled at a rate of 200km per day for 130 days.

https://www.birdcare.com/bin/shownews/90

Arctic Terns are famed for their incredible migration. Arctic Terns breeding along the frigid shorelines of Greenland or Iceland migrate around 71,000 km per year. The temptation to multiply this with the average lifespan is too great to resist: 30 years x yearly average = 2.4 million kilometres. Three times to the Moon and back, as the tern flies. Birds from The Netherlands fly even further: down the coast of Europe and Africa, then just past Cape Town, and east to Australia or even New Zealand, then south to the Antarctic. One bird holds the record of the longest known migration for any animal: 91,000 km in a year. This species sees more daylight than any other creature, and has pretty much perpetual summer – making its scientific name of S. paradisaea quite fitting. Sick or exhausted Arctic Terns rarely join tern roosts along the coast, but for the most part they are pelagic, and migrate well offshore. They are most commonly encountered in spring and autumn on passage. But expect the unexpected: in September 1996, Dave Allan and Andrew Jenkins found an Arctic Tern flying above Katse Dam in Lesotho, not only 500 km from the sea, but also way up in the mountains!
Germany, September

Longest migratory flight of about 90,000km per year

The Antarctic Tern is a regular winter visitor to South Africa. The first birds arrive about April in the Western Cape and May in the Eastern Cape and numbers build up to a peak in August. Departure takes place mainly in September and October, and is complete by November, with only isolated birds remaining in South Africa for the summer months.

It feeds at sea, and is often seen as far as 150 km offshore. The distribution at sea extends from about Hondeklipbaai in the Northern Cape to about Cape Padrone at the eastern limit of Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape. It roosts gregariously, with other species of gulls and terns. Regular roosts lie in a narrower range than the "at sea" records, and are between Lamberts Bay and Cape Agulhas and between Cape St Francis and Bird Island, Algoa Bay. Beyond this area it is a vagrant, with records from as far as Walvis Bay in Namibia and from KwaZulu-Natal. Most roosts are on the offshore islands; on the mainland it uses headlands with flat rocks and sheltered sandy beaches. Large mainland roosts have been recorded at Grootpaternosterpunt (32 44S, 17 54E), Bekbaai (32 49S, 17 53E), Mauritzbaai (32 59S, 17 53E), North Head, Saldanha Bay (33 03S, 17 55E), Kommetjie (34 08S, 18 19E), Danger Point (34 38S, 19 17E) and Cape Recife (34 02S 25 43E).

Brevisana brevis, known as the Shrill Thorntree Cicada, is a cicada found in Africa and is the loudest insect on record. Flutterby has photographed one at Lower Sabie.
https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic. ... 84#p233084

The African cicada, Brevisana brevis (Homoptera: Cicadidae, subfamily Cicadinae, tribe Platypleurini) produces a calling song with a mean sound pressure level of 106.7 decibels at a distance of 50cm. Brevisana brevis is likely the loudest insect species on record. Cicada songs are species-specific and play a vital role in communication, reproduction, and possibly defense.
The platypleurine cicadas are a group of large, attractively patterned, tree-dwelling bugs which make their presence obvious by their loud calling songs.



Sound is produced by cicadas when muscles buckle the tymbals, rib-strengthened chitinous membranes located on the dorsolateral surfaces of the first abdominal segment. The sound pulse is modified by several body components and radiated through the tympana.
Male cicadas, in case you were wondering, use their opercula (flaps on their abdomen) to cover their tympana (the cicadas hearing organs) when they sing, so they don’t damage their own hearing. Cicadas — male and female — listen with their tympana.

Most male cicadas attract mates with their calling song giving larger males a competitive advantage in sexual selection. The calling song also stimulates aggregation of conspecific males; and when males are in close proximity, it may repel, resulting in a minimum distance between individuals.

The noise produced by cicadas could be interpreted as an advertisement for predators. At close range, the painfully intense sounds can also have a repellant effect on bird predators.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140929 ... -the-world

That's a new one to me

Lisbeth wrote: ↑Wed Nov 04, 2020 1:54 pm The ostrich is the world’s largest 2-legged animal, growing up to 2,7m and weighing up to 160kg. It is also the fastest 2-legged, running at a speed of 70km/h. The ostrich’s weakness, however, is that it runs around in circles when alarmed, making it easy prey for attackers.

With a diameter of 5cm, the Common Ostrich (Struthio camelus) is said to have the largest eyes of any land animal. They are about the size of a billiard ball and five times larger than the human eye! You can see when you look closely that their eyes are quite beautiful with long eyelashes to protect them. However, they take up so much room in their head that their brain is actually smaller than either one of its eyeballs. With such impressive eyes, ostriches can spot moving objects at great distance – something around the size of a large dog can be seen as far as 3km away during the day and about 50 meters at night.


Maybe there are even more records for the ostrich

Biggest bird!