5 Fun Facts About Africa’s Great Migration

You may have seen it on television – it’s an event that National Geographic has always loved to film. A grand spectacle and a treat for the senses, the Great Migration in Africa is the annual movement of the world’s largest (non-human) land animal group from one part of Africa to the other, in search of food and safer breeding grounds*.

Wildebeests, antelope, zebra and big cats congregate for five months of rigorous walking, eating, birthing and killing. Here are 5 amazing facts about it:

1. The Great Migration starts in Tanzania at the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation areas and ends at the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The migration starts in the month of November and the animals reach their destination in March.
2. A recorded 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra and thousands of antelope make the migration each year. The animals travel a staggering 2900 kilometres (1800 miles) in total, from Tanzania to Kenya and back during this journey.
3. The Great Migration follows one of the most dangerous routes in Africa. Animals making the journey have to deal with hungry predators (lions, cheetahs & crocodiles), treacherous floods, the uncaring African sun, mean-spirited tsetse flies and physical tiredness. More than 250,000 wildebeests and thousands of zebras and antelopes die each year on the journey. This is excluding the thousands of calves who are left orphaned and vulnerable to predators after their mothers die. A recorded 3000 lions follow the herds on their journey, picking off the weak and the injured.
4. More than a foraging mission, the Great Migration is a breeding expedition. Pregnant wildebeests move from Tanzania to Kenya for better environmental conditions for calving. An estimated half a million baby wildebeests are born annually during the migration. In the peak of the calving season (February), more than 8000 wildebeest calves are born in a single day!
5. Although they look like they’re confused and panicked all the time, the massive herds of wildebeests, zebras and antelopes actually function together as one cohesive unit. They display a tactic researchers call “swarm intelligence”, where they carefully analyse, strategise and implement a  plan of action to get safely past any threat together. There’s no “I” in this family.

 

Bonus

There is still no established and accepted explanation for the occurrence of the Great Migration.

Some scientists believe the changing chemistry of the grass could be the reason for the movement. When levels of phosphorous and nitrogen in the Serengeti grassland reduces, the wildebeests may be encouraged to move elsewhere for more nutritious meals, acting as the catalyst for the Great Migration. Others believe that the migration may be the result of a co-ordinated effort helmed by a leader. But so far there has been no evidence of there ever being an alpha-wildebeest in any herd. Then there are those scientists who believe that the Great Migration is the consequence of instinct and DNA – a purely biological process that has no other reason.

Well, whatever the rationale, fossil records show that the Great Migration has been in occurrence in East Africa for over one million years.

 

The Great Migration – Route Map (image source)

 

A sea of wildebeests, zebras and antelopes greet the eyes during the Great Migration. Often, these herds extend all the way to the horizon; but they don’t stop there. They go on & on. (image source)

 

Wildebeests crossing the Mara river – this is where they are most vulnerable to attack from crocodiles. (image source)

 

A wildebeest mother with her newborn calf. (image source)

 

Video: Watch the culmination of the Great Migration – wildebeest giving birth & a newborn’s first, wobbly steps. 

 

-NISHA PRAKASH

P.S: Featured image

*Humans take the crown for the farthest migrations in search of food and shelter. 

5 Fun Facts About Zorse

1. Zorse is a real animal. It is the cross-bred offspring of a zebra stallion and a horse mare.
2. The combination of the horse and zebra genetic material has given the Zorse a stunning genetic blueprint. A Zorse is always immune to the genetic diseases that are common to both its parents.
3. Although its fur colour can come from either of its parents, most of the physical features of the Zorse come from the Zebra father, making it a very strong & hardy animal, fit for the wild. However, its personality and temperament are exactly like its Horse mother, making it very easy to train. That’s why the Zorse is used as a pack animal in certain places of North America.
4. The Zorse has a 360-degree vision and can turn its eyeballs completely around to see. However, it has two blind spots – one behind the head and one directly below the nose.
5. The Zorse is by birth sterile and can’t reproduce. However, mating behaviours have been observed in the animals, both in the wild and in captivity.

 

Bonus

Unlike Ligers and Tigons, which come from different combinations of lion and tiger mating, Zorse foals are born genetically the same irrespective of whether they are reared through a zebra stallion-horse mare mating or a horse stallion-zebra mare mating. However, since zebras are rarer and scientifically more valuable to breeding programs than horses are, no zebra owner voluntarily wastes time on having their female zebra give birth to a Zorse.

 

A mother horse with her zorse foal

 

Zorses come in a variety of colours: 

 

 

-NISHA PRAKASH

 

 

5 Fun Facts About Okapi

1. Okapi have tongues that are 30 cms long, which is approximately double the length of a standard television remote and three times the length of the average human tongue.
2. Okapi diet is as diverse as it is colourful. Okapi eat over 100 types of plants & fungi, red clay and charcoal. This type of diet ensures they get all the nutrients they need to be healthy.
3. New born okapi don’t poop until they are four to ten weeks old. Researchers believe this may be a tactic to avoid drawing predators through smell.
4. Mother okapi speak to their babies in infrasound, sounds that are too low for humans to hear.
5. Okapi release a black tar-like substance from their feet, which leaves marks when they walk. This could be a way of marking territory.

 

Bonus

Okapi are extremely shy and live in secluded areas of the forest. Apart from calf-mother pairs, they seldom interact with any species, including their own. Till the time they were discovered in 1901 by British explorer Sir Harry Johnston, Okapi were called ‘African Unicorns’ because people thought they were a myth and didn’t really exist. It was only the indigenous tribes living in the Congo-Ugandan region who had occasionally seen the animals till then. Now they are found only in the Congo and are the country’s national animal.

 

Video: An okapi in the wild

 

An okapi 

 

The Okapi Wildlife Reserve established in Congo helps safeguard this Rare & Endangered species. There are currently only 25,000 documented okapi in the wild. 

The Congolese franc uses okapi as the image for their 50 franc notes.

A mother-calf pair feeding

 

-NISHA PRAKASH