Discover the big and small and fascinating animals essential to this natural ecosystem
Morning Sun Nature reserve is home to a wide diversity of wildlife from the massive eland to the small elephant shrew all playing a vital role in this unique ecosystem.
The lesser known zebra, namely the Hartmann's Mountain Zebra roam the hills and dassies sun bath on the cliffs minding the attention of the Black Eagles soaring above.
As the sun begins to set the more secretive nocturnal animals, such as leopard, brown hyena as well as bush pig, porcupine, aardvark and pangolin, become more active and the cute bush babies can be seen and heard foraging in the trees.
Antelope: 19 species sighted on Morningsun Reserve alone (including rare Sharp's grysbok, red duiker, sable, tsesebe and eland)
Predators: leopard, brown hyena, honey badger and numerous other feline and canine as well as mongoose and other species.
Primates: 5 species regionally and 4 locally (namely charismatic greater and lesser bush babies, vervet monkeys and baboons)
Zebra: Hartmann's mountain zebra
Pigs: warthog and bush pig
Hyrax: rock dassie (P. capensis), yello-spotted rock dassie (H. brucei) and tree dassie (D. arboreus)
Erdvark: (antbear, aardvark - O. afer)
Pangolin: (M. temminckii)
Rodents: porcupines, giant rat (C. gambianus), greater cane rat (T. swinderianus), numerous smaller species of the rat and mice families, ground and tree squirrels, shrews (including rare four-toed elephant shrew (P. cearadactylus beirae)
Bats: numerous species
Reptiles and Amphibia: Tortoises, Lizards, Geckos, Chameleons and Frogs, of which at least 8 are endemic to the region.
Insects, spiders and scorpions: The diversity of butterflies in the region mirrors the diversity of its plant life. More than 300 species of butterflies occur in the region of 95 genera, 6 main families and 19 subfamilies. As regards moth species, as many as 3000 species are believed to exist in the region.
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