Fauna of South Africa

Due to this, South Africa enjoys high biodiversity, and is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries.

This biome used to be extensive grassland in the past, but has become dominated by small shrubs and succulents due to centuries of overgrazing.

To the north and east of these biomes is the Kalahari, which is mainly semi-arid woodland, dominated by thorn trees of the genus Acacia.

The north-east and eastern parts of South Africa (Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Kwa-Zulu Natal)is covered with savanna and open woodlands known as bushveld.

The most prevalent biome in South Africa is grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses and low shrubs.

To the west, the vegetation intergrades into Mediterranean shrubland known locally as fynbos, dominated mainly by plant families rare in other habitats, such as Proteaceae, Ericaceae and Restionaceae.

Finally, the last biome found is forest, which only covers 1% of South Africa and is concentrated around the Knysna area and scattered along the escarpment of the Drakensberg mountains upwards along Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Most carnivoran families are well represented in South Africa, such as Canidae, Felidae, Hyaenidae, Mustelidae, Viverridae, Herpestidae, and Otariidae.

The African wild dog is an endangered species and is found mainly in the Kruger National Park and surrounding areas.

Other species range in a wider variety of habitats, such as the Springbok in arid shrublands, semidesert and grassland, and the Greater Kudu in thicket, open woodlands and riverine vegetation.

Distantly related to the warthog and the bushpig but closer to cetaceans is the hippopotamus, an amphibious mammal that usually submerges itself in water bodies during the day and comes on land to feed on grasses during the night.

The hippopotamus is found in the eastern part of the country down to the St Lucia wetlands/ Kosi Bay estuary in Kwa-Zulu Natal, although they used to be much more widespread, occurring as far west as Cape Town and down the length of the Orange River.

After their arrival in 1652 the Dutch settlers, led by founder of Cape Town Jan van Riebeeck, shot the resident hippopotamus population to extinction for meat and hides.

The Cape ground squirrel is common in arid areas and often shares its burrows with mongooses and meerkats, and is known to use its bushy tail as an umbrella from the harsh sun.

It differs from the European hedgehog in having a dark face bordered by white fur and longer legs, an adaptation to a warmer climate.

The Phasianidae are locally constituted of the francolins, quails, partridges and the Indian peafowl, which is an alien species that has escaped from captivity in some areas.

Hornbills are characterised by a large downcurved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a casque on the upper mandible.

They are omnivores, eating both fruit and small animals such as chameleons; the ground hornbill is an adept hunter and will forage in packs, flushing out prey such as locusts, lizards and even tortoises.

The African subspecies (which some authorities elevate to full species status), is more russet in colour than its northerly relative and feeds similarly on insects, hawking for them and probing the soil with the long bill.

The wood-hoopoes feed on arthropods, especially insects, which they find by probing with their bills in rotten wood and in crevices in bark, such as on the paper-bark thorn.

The house crow can be found in Cape Town and Durban, where control measures have been implemented with varying degrees of success.

Rain frogs are unable to swim; if they fall into a body of water, they puff up and float until they reach the shore.

[21] The Cape river frog falls under the family Pyxicephalidae, and is widespread over the country, also occurring in Namibia, Lesotho, and Swaziland.

The only locally occurring member of the family Rhacophoridae, the grey foam-nest treefrog has an interesting breeding system.

Many reptiles inhabit South Africa, including snakes, lizards, tortoises and turtles, and crocodiles.

The largest is the African rock python, a non-venomous snake that kills its prey, which includes creatures up to the size of an antelope, by constriction.

South Africa has rich and varied sea life, thanks to the confluence of two major oceans (the Atlantic and the Indian) around its southernmost point, Cape Agulhas.

[22] Coelacanths, formerly considered extinct since the Late Cretaceous period, were discovered in 1938 when one was caught off the eastern coast of the country.

The Oligochaeta fauna is represented by over 140 species of the families Acanthodrilidae, Enchytraeidae, Eudrilidae, Haplotaxidae, Microchaetidae and Tritogeniidae.

[24][25] Coleoptera Beetles are among best studied South African insect groups[26][27] and include a number of endemic species.