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Amboseli Institute
Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Loitoktok District in Kajiado County, Kenya. It is in size at the core of an ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It harbours 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species. The local people are mainly Maasai. The park protects two of the five main swamps and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semiarid vegetation. History In 1883, Jeremy Thompson was the first European to penetrate the feared Maasai region known as ''Empusel'' (meaning 'salty, dusty place' in Maa). He, too, was astonished by the fantastic array of wildlife and the contrast between the arid areas of the dry lake bed and the oasis of the swamps, a contrast that persists today. Amboseli was set aside as the Southern Reserve for the Maasai in 1906 but returned to local control as a game reserve in 1948. Gazetted a national park in 1974 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kajiado County
Kajiado County is a county in the former Rift Valley Province of Kenya. As of 2019, Kajiado county spanned an area of 21,292.7 km2, with a recorded population of 1,117,840. The county borders Nairobi and to its south it borders the Tanzanian regions of Arusha and Kilimanjaro. The county capital is Kajiado town but the largest town is Ongata Rongai. Its main tourist attraction is wildlife. Demographics Kajiado County has a total population of 1,117,840 people, of which 557,098 are males, 560,704 are females, and 38 intersex people. There are 316,179 households with an average size of 3.5 people per household and a population density of 51 people per square kilometre. Source Religion Religion in Kajiado County Administrative and political units Kajiado County is divided into 5 sub-counties and 25 Wards with Kajiado West being the largest and Kajiado North Sub-county being the smallest in terms of area in km2. Administration units Kajiado is subdivided in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Bush Elephant
The African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana''), also known as the African savanna elephant, is a species of elephant native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of three extant elephant species and, along with the African forest elephant, one of two extant species of African elephant. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with fully grown bulls reaching an average shoulder height of and a body mass of ; the largest recorded specimen had a shoulder height of and an estimated body mass of . The African bush elephant is characterised by its long prehensile trunk with two finger-like processes; a convex back; large ears which help reduce body heat; and sturdy tusks that are noticeably curved. The skin is grey with scanty hairs, and bending cracks which support thermoregulation by retaining water. The African bush elephant inhabits a variety of habitats such as forests, grasslands, woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land. It is a mixed herbivore feeding mostly on grasse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biosphere Reserves Of Kenya
The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to matter,"Biosphere" in ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', 6th ed. (2004) Columbia University Press. with minimal inputs and outputs. Regarding , it is an open system, with capturing |
Great Rift Valley
The Great Rift Valley () is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name remains in some usages, it is rarely used in geology where the term "Afro-Arabian Rift System" is preferred. This valley extends southward from Western Asia into the eastern part of Africa, where several deep, elongated lakes, called ribbon lakes, exist on the rift valley floor, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika being two such examples. The region has a unique ecosystem and contains a number of Africa's wildlife parks. The term Great Rift Valley is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar triple junction southward through eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African plate into two new and sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amboseli National Park
Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Loitoktok District in Kajiado County, Kenya. It is in size at the core of an ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It harbours 400 species of birds including water birds like pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hamerkop and 47 raptor species. The local people are mainly Maasai. The park protects two of the five main swamps and includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semiarid vegetation. History In 1883, Jeremy Thompson was the first European to penetrate the feared Maasai region known as ''Empusel'' (meaning 'salty, dusty place' in Maa). He, too, was astonished by the fantastic array of wildlife and the contrast between the arid areas of the dry lake bed and the oasis of the swamps, a contrast that persists today. Amboseli was set aside as the Southern Reserve for the Maasai in 1906 but returned to local control as a game reserve in 1948. Gazetted a national park in 1974 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amboseli Baboon Research Project
The Amboseli Baboon Project is a long-term, individual-based research project on yellow baboons (''Papio cynocephalus'') in the Amboseli basin of southern Kenya. Founded in 1971, it is one of the longest-running studies of a wild primate in the world. Research at the Amboseli Baboon Project centers on processes at the individual, group, and population levels, and in recent years has also included other aspects of baboon biology, such as genetics, hormones, nutrition, hybridization, parasitology, and relations with other species. The project is affiliated with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ..., thDepartment of Biologyand thEvolutionary Anthropology Departmentat Duke University, thDepartment of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amboseli Elephant Research Project
The Amboseli Elephant Research Project is a long-term research project on the ethology of the African elephant, operated by the nonprofit Amboseli Trust for Elephants. The project studies the elephant's social behavior, age structure and population dynamics. It is the longest running study of elephant behavior in the wild, and has gathered data on life histories and association patterns for more than 2,000 individual elephants. The research project was initiated in 1972 by Cynthia Moss and Harvey Croze in Amboseli National Park in the south of Kenya. Relatively few poachers have been active in Amboseli Park's approximately 390 km² area. This is especially due to the Maasai people, and the constant presence of tourists and researchers. Thus, Amboseli is one of the few regions in Africa where the age structure of elephants has remained undistorted. The area is monitored by game wardens and scientists throughout the year. The subjects of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Wildebeest
The blue wildebeest (''Connochaetes taurinus''), also called the common wildebeest, white-bearded gnu or brindled gnu, is a large antelope and one of the two species of wildebeest. It is placed in the genus ''Connochaetes'' and Family (biology), family Bovidae, and has a close taxonomic relationship with the black wildebeest. The blue wildebeest is known to have five subspecies. This broad-shouldered antelope has a muscular, front-heavy appearance, with a distinctive, robust snout, muzzle. Young blue wildebeest are born tawny brown, and begin to take on their adult coloration at the age of 2 months. The adults' hues range from a deep slate or bluish-gray to light gray or even grayish-brown. Both sexes possess a pair of large curved horn (anatomy), horns. The blue wildebeest is an herbivore, feeding primarily on short grasses. It forms herds which move about in loose aggregations, the animals being fast runners and extremely wary. The mating season begins at the end of the rainy se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grant's Zebra
Grant's zebra (''Equus quagga boehmi'') is the smallest of the seven subspecies of the plains zebra. This subspecies represents the zebra form of the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem and others across central Africa. Distribution This subspecies is distributed in Zambia west of the Luangwa river west to Kariba, Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north to the Kibanzao Plateau, and in Tanzania north from Nyangaui and Kibwezi into southwestern Kenya as far as Sotik. It can also be found in eastern Kenya and east of the Great Rift Valley into southernmost Ethiopia. It occurs as far as the Juba River in Somalia. Upper Zambezi zebra Duncan (1992)Duncan, P. (ed.). 1992.''Zebras, Asses, and Horses: An Action Plan for the Conservation of Wild Equids''. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/SSC Equid Specialist Group. recognized the Upper Zambezi zebra (''Equus quagga zambeziensis'' Prazak, 1898). Groves and Bell (2004)Groves, C.P. & Bell, H.B. 2004. "New Investigations on the T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masai Giraffe
The Masai giraffe (''Giraffa tippelskirchi''), also spelled Maasai giraffe, and sometimes called the Kilimanjaro giraffe, is a species or subspecies of giraffe. It is native to East Africa. The Masai giraffe can be found in central and southern Kenya and in Tanzania and Uganda. It has distinctive jagged, irregular leaf-like blotches that extend from the hooves to its head. The Masai giraffe is currently the national animal of Tanzania. Taxonomy The IUCN currently recognizes only one species of giraffe with nine subspecies The Masai giraffe was described and given the binomial name ''Giraffa tippelskirchi'' by German zoologist Paul Matschie in 1898, but current taxonomy refers to Masai giraffe as ''Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi''. The Masai giraffe was named in honor of Herr von Tippelskirch, who was a member of a German scientific expedition in German East Africa to what is now northern Tanzania in 1896. Tippelskirch brought back the skin of a female Masai giraffe from ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spotted Hyena
The spotted hyena (''Crocuta crocuta''), also known as the laughing hyena, is a hyena species, currently classed as the sole extant member of the genus ''Crocuta'', native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as being of least concern by the IUCN due to its widespread range and large numbers estimated between 27,000 and 47,000 individuals. The species is, however, experiencing declines outside of protected areas due to habitat loss and poaching. Populations of ''Crocuta'', usually considered a subspecies of ''Crocuta crocuta'', known as cave hyenas, roamed across Eurasia for at least one million years until the end of the Late Pleistocene. The spotted hyena is the largest extant member of the Hyaenidae, and is further physically distinguished from other species by its vaguely bear-like build, rounded ears, less prominent mane, spotted pelt, more dual-purposed dentition, fewer nipples, and #Female genitalia, pseudo-penis. It is the only placental mammalian species where females hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East African Cheetah
The East African cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus jubatus''), is a cheetah population in East Africa. It lives in grasslands and savannas of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia. The cheetah inhabits mainly the Serengeti ecosystem, including Maasai Mara, and the Tsavo landscape. A cheetah from British East Africa was Species description, described by the American zoologist Edmund Heller in 1913. He proposed the Trinomial nomenclature, trinomen ''Felis jubatus raineyi'' as a distinct subspecies. It also was recognized as several other distinct subspecies, such as ''A. j. ngorongorensis'' and ''A. j. velox''. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Species Survival Commission#Cat Specialist Group, Cat Specialist Group subsumed ''A. j. raineyi'' to ''East-Southern African cheetah, A. j. jubatus''. In 2007, the total number of cheetahs in East Africa were estimated at 1,960 to 2,572 adults and independent adolescents. East African cheetahs form the second-largest populatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
