Wildlife
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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