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Kisumu Impala Sanctuary
Located within Kisumu city, Kisumu Impala Sanctuary lies on the shores of Lake Victoria, covering less than 1km2. The facility was gazetted in 1992. In March 2010, the sanctuary was branded as ‘a lakeshore walk with impalas'. There are a diverse number of flora (of trees, grass & herbs) and fauna both free ranging and captive. Over 115 species of birds have been recorded. Presently, the sanctuary boasts of all the big five game except for the elephant. A number of nature trail circuits are also available for clients. Annually, the sanctuary conducts the Kisumu Impala Conservation Boat Race event in November to help create awareness of wildlife, especially the endangered sitatunga antelope. Apart from nature viewing and boat riding, the sanctuary is a key site for ecology and wildlife research and education. Wildlife The animal sanctuary houses lions, African leopards, cape buffalos, olive baboons, hyenas, Tanzanian cheetahs, side-striped jackals, rescued grey parrots, g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kisumu County
Kisumu County is one of 47 counties in the Republic of Kenya. Its borders follow those of the original Kisumu District, one of the former administrative districts of the former Nyanza Province in western Kenya. Its headquarters is Kisumu City which is the third largest city in Kenya after the capital Nairobi and the coastal city of Mombasa. It has a population of 1,155,574 (according to the 2019 National Census). The land area of Kisumu County totals 2085.9 km2. Kisumu County's neighbours are Siaya County to the West, Vihiga County to the North, Nandi County to the North East and Kericho County to the East. Its neighbour to the South is Nyamira County and Homa Bay County is to the South West. The county has a shoreline on Lake Victoria, occupying northern, western and a part of the southern shores of the Winam Gulf. Etymology The name Kisumu comes from the Luo word "Kisuma"Kikelo. Generally, Kisuma means "a place where people meet to exchange goods" but it does not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Side-striped Jackal
The side-striped jackal (''Lupulella adusta)'' is a canine native to central and southern Africa. Unlike the smaller and related black-backed jackal (''Lupulella mesomelas''), which dwells in open plains, the side-striped jackal primarily dwells in woodland and scrub areas. Taxonomy and evolution Carl Jakob Sundevall named the species ''Canis adustus'' in 1847. Fossil remains date to the Pliocene era. A mitochondrial DNA sequence alignment for the wolf-like canids gave a phylogenetic tree with the side-striped jackal and the black-backed jackal being the most basal members of this clade, which means that this tree is indicating an African origin for the clade. In 2019, a workshop hosted by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group recommends that because DNA evidence shows the side-striped jackal (''Canis adustus'') and black-backed jackal (''Canis mesomelas'') to form a monophyletic lineage that sits outside of the Canis/Cuon/Lycaon clade, that they should be placed in a dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Safari Lodge
{{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A safari lodge (also known as a game lodge) is a type of tourist accommodation in southern and eastern Africa. Lodges are mainly used by tourists on wildlife safaris, and are typically located in or near national parks or game reserves A game reserve (also known as a wildlife preserve or a game park) is a large area of land where wild animals live safely or are hunted in a controlled way for sport. If hunting is prohibited, a game reserve may be considered a nature reserve; .... Lodges are usually in isolated rural areas, and offer meals and activities such as game drives, in addition to accommodation. The standard of accommodation varies considerably, from rustic bush camps, sometimes tented, to luxury lodges with the character of upmarket hotels. Unlike hotels or pensions, which typically consist of houses with many rooms, the dwellings in lodges are often in separate buildings with a bedroom, a bathroom, a terrace a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swamp
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations.Hughes, F.M.R. (ed.). 2003. The Flooded Forest: Guidance for policy makers and river managers in Europe on the restoration of floodplain forests. FLOBAR2, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. 96 p. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (''Choeropsis liberiensis'' or ''Hexaprotodon liberiensis''). Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (). Aside from elephants and rhinos, the hippopotamus is the largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans ( whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, pillar-like legs, and large size: adults averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers (formerly the superfamily "Hesperioidea"), and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies (formerly the superfamily "Hedyloidea"). Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago. Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle, as like most insects they undergo complete metamorphosis. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it fli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" '' Triadobatrachus'' is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history. An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragon Fly
A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of true dragonfly are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threatens dragonfly populations around the world. Adult dragonflies are characterized by a pair of large, multifaceted compound eyes, two pairs of strong, transparent wings, sometimes with coloured patches, and an elongated body. Many dragonflies have brilliant iridescent or metallic colours produced by structural colouration, making them conspicuous in flight. An adult dragonfly's compound eyes have nearly 24,000 ommatidia each. Dragonflies can be mistaken for the closely related damselflies, which make up the other odonatan infraorder ( Zygoptera) and are similar in body plan though usually lighter in build; however, the wings of most dragonflies are held flat and away from the body, while damselflies hold their wings folded at rest, along or ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monitor Lizard
Monitor lizards are lizards in the genus ''Varanus,'' the only extant genus in the family Varanidae. They are native to Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and one species is also found in the Americas as an invasive species. About 80 species are recognized. Monitor lizards have long necks, powerful tails and claws, and well-developed limbs. The adult length of extant species ranges from in some species, to over in the case of the Komodo dragon, though the extinct varanid known as megalania (''Varanus priscus'') may have been capable of reaching lengths more than . Most monitor species are terrestrial, but arboreal and semiaquatic monitors are also known. While most monitor lizards are carnivorous, eating eggs, smaller reptiles, fish, birds, insects, and small mammals, some also eat fruit and vegetation, depending on where they live. Distribution The various species cover a vast area, occurring through Africa, the Indian subcontinent, to China, the Ryukyu Islands in sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads ( cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vervet Monkey
The vervet monkey (''Chlorocebus pygerythrus''), or simply vervet, is an Old World monkey of the family Cercopithecidae native to Africa. The term "vervet" is also used to refer to all the members of the genus '' Chlorocebus''. The five distinct subspecies can be found mostly throughout Southern Africa, as well as some of the eastern countries. Vervets were introduced to Florida, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and Cape Verde. These mostly herbivorous monkeys have black faces and grey body hair color, ranging in body length from about for females, to about for males. In addition to behavioral research on natural populations, vervet monkeys serve as a nonhuman primate model for understanding genetic and social behaviors of humans. They have been noted for having human-like characteristics, such as hypertension, anxiety, and social and dependent alcohol use. Vervets live in social groups ranging from 10 to 70 individuals, with males moving to other groups at the time of sexual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leopard Tortoise
The leopard tortoise (''Stigmochelys pardalis'') is a large and attractively marked tortoise found in the savannas of eastern and southern Africa, from Sudan to the southern Cape. It is the only extant member of the genus ''Stigmochelys'', although in the past, it was commonly placed in ''Geochelone''. This tortoise is a grazing species that favors semiarid, thorny to grassland habitats. In both very hot and very cold weather, it may dwell in abandoned fox, jackal, or aardvark holes. The leopard tortoise does not dig other than to make nests in which to lay eggs. Given its propensity for grassland habitats, it grazes extensively upon mixed grasses. It also favors succulents and thistles. Taxonomy and etymology The phylogenic placement of the leopard tortoise has been subject to several revisions. Different authors have placed it in ''Geochelone'' (1957), ''Stigmochelys'' (2001), ''Centrochelys'' (2002), and ''Psammobates'' (2006). More recently, consensus appears to have settled on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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