Streets of the World

Wednesday, September 25, 2024: Warthogs and Mongooses

written by

Brenda
Welcome to the Sable Alley tented camp.
Our bedroom with a view of the waterhole with mosquito netting at night.
Bathroom. We can only drink the filtered water provided.
Outdoor shower for a back to nature feel.

The Okavango Delta is a Seasonal Flood Plain. The camp is a Mopani Woodland.

Mopani trees put a chemical in the soil that prevents other trees from growing. It looks dead, but when the rains arrive, leaves of green will return. The larvae found on the Mopani tree has lots of protein and is eaten regularly.

It is common for someone traveling by car to get stuck in the sand. It is recommended to carry a shovel to dig out. One can deflate tires to get out, but then they need to have air to pump them back up. Some people use the dead logs that lie around to create some traction.

Mokoro

Instead of an afternoon game drive, we traveled through the water holes on hippo highways on mokoros. The mokoro are canoes that people who live on the delta use to travel from island to island.

A leadwood tree is so dense that it doesn’t float. It is illegal to cut down. Fortunately, our mokoros are not made of leadwood.

Our polers are Six and Two Six. Mothusi is the real name of Six and Bathusi is the real name of Two Six. This must be the Botswana version of Thing I and Thing II.
A herd of elephants did not like where our mokoros were going so Six and Two Six had us disembark while they gently persuaded them to go another way.
The polers sat down so as to not threaten the elephants.

Warthogs

The only animals that have tusks are warthogs, hippos, and elephants. Warthogs develop protective callouses on their front knees in the womb. Their nose is a digging tool. Warthogs back into their burrows and put their heads facing out for a quick escape.

The Warthog does not have a flexible neck so he has to get on his knees.
A group of warthogs is called a sounder.

The anteater digs into a termite mound and makes a large deep hole within seconds. He uses his long sticky tongue to get ants and then leaves. He is the housing agent for warthogs, wild dogs, jackals and hyenas that are too lazy to build their own dens.

Mongoose

We have seen slender Mongooses, dwarf Mongooses, Yellow Mongooses, and, mostly, banded Mongooses. And, no, the plural of the mongoose is not mongeese. It’s mongooses!!

This mongoose is searching for bird eggs on the ground.

Banded mongooses eat scorpions and earthworms. A mongoose can attack snakes such as the cobra and black mamba. It doesn’t die when bitten but will vomit.

Banded mongooses begged for food while we were having lunch. Never feed wildlife!! He splayed out his four feet to rest his belly on the cool bricks .
The mongoose can stand up like a meerkat. He’s on the lookout. The chief predators of the mongoose are leopards and the martial eagle.

Slender mongoose is slender (obviously) with black color at the tip of tail.

Poachers (trigger alert)

Poaching is illegal and poachers have no excuse and are shot on sight.

  1. The anti-poaching unit was sure that elephants were being poached. However, they could not find any signs of human activity. They enlisted the help of the bush men who are excellent trackers. They said that these “elephant tracks” consisted of only two legs and not four. Impossible! The poachers had put elephant feet over their own feet. The anti-poachers found their deserted camp and shot most of them when they returned. Some were able to flee but surely told others about the cost of poaching.
  2. The authorities came across two men who had just killed a rhino. They tied the men to the dead rhino and left. YIKES!!!

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