Sitting at the tip of Africa, the Western Cape is a hot bed of biological endemism. Above the ground, the country side is draped in what is left of an ever shrinking blanket of fynbos. For those interested, it only takes a walk in mountains, or a visit to Kirstenbosch Gardens to see plants one cannot see anywhere else in the world. Below ground, there is an equally intriguing world, populated by animals, many of which are unique to the area.
For most people, getting underground is a little more difficult than visiting the botanical gardens. This website hopes to help those who are interested in what lives underground, but cannot get there to see for themselves. The aim is to publish pictures of all of the creatures found in the caves of the Southern Cape, South Africa. Not only will it allow those who remain firmly ensconced behind their computer screens the opportunity to see what lives in our local caves, but it will also allow those who do manage to visit our caves the opportunity to identify what they see, and learn more about the ecosystems in which they occur.
After many years of discussing the idea, the project was started by Anthony Hitchcock and Peter Swart in 2008.
If you are trying to identify something, and cannot find it here, try iSpot. Thats where the real experts hangout.
pgs
Nov 2011
Excellent pictures of cave-dwelling bats!
ReplyDeleteWe would be delighted if you add some of your bat photos as citizen-science observations to the AfriBats project on iNaturalist:
www.inaturalist.org/projects/afribats
http://inaturalist.org/attachments/project_assets/217-AfriBats.pdf
AfriBats will use your observations to better understand bat distributions and help protect bats in Africa.
Many thanks!