Home – Madagascar
Habitat – Tropical Rainforest
Niche – Apex Predator
Favorite Food – Lemurs
Body Length – 23 to 30 inches
Weight – 20 to 30 pounds
Status – Endangered
Threats – Habitat Loss, Illegal Hunting
The fossa is among the most unique of endangered Madagascar animals. It’s the largest carnivore roaming the fourth largest island on earth, stalking a territory of nearly two square miles in its hunt for other mammals. A solitary hunter with the ability to leap great distances and climb trees, it is one of the most specialized carnivores on earth, though scarcely bigger than a housecat.
Fossas belong to the mongoose family – small, agile hunters of the Old World – but in appearance, they resemble lean cats. They have the same short jaws, large frontal eyes, and rounded ears, but fossas are in no way related to felines, instead occupying their own special subgroup in the mongoose family. They are the apex predators of Madagascar, hunting all over its remaining rainforests. To soften its approach on a hunt, the fossa can retract its claws like a housecat and has excellent eyesight, allowing it to hunt at night.
Despite its formidable array of offensive weapons, it’s unlikely the fossa will be able to hold out much longer in the wild if deforestation in Madagascar continues at its present rate. These animals depend on thick foliage to launch ambush attacks on prey. They also maintain low population densities and without expanses of forest to stake out a large territory, individuals cannot survive. Driven from its traditional rainforest home and deprived of its traditional sources of prey, the fossa has been forced to move into human territory, often killing livestock for food. To protect their livelihood, farmers and ranchers have resorted to trapping and killing fossa, which has further impacted their numbers.
Home – Southeast Africa
Habitat – moist grassland
Niche – Large grassland herbivore
Favorite Food – grass
Length – between 6 and 8 feet long
Weight – between 300 and 650 pounds
Status – Lower Risk
Threats – Habitat loss from ranching and farming
From a distance, the sable antelope looks like a small horse with horns. Although both the male and the female sables have the same markings on their bodies, the male is jet black and the female is a golden brown. Their fantastical appearance brings African unicorns to mind.
Sable antelope are peculiar relatives of horses, sheep, and goats. Both sexes sport two heavily-ringed horns the size and shape of curved swords atop their heads. These are the mark of their species, how males will determine dominance, and how the next generation will come about as a result.
The dry season has ended in Central Africa on a wide strip of grassland running from Kenya to South Africa. During this difficult season, the local sable antelopes had gathered into herds of 100 or more to protect young and locate food. But now, as the rain comes down with force to mark the opening of the new season, things get wet. It’s the mating season and the males have broken off into small gangs to prowl the moist grasslands for females. In fact, sable antelope prefer moister grasslands than most of their antelope cousins. For these young men, finding the ladies is only half the battle. The real test comes when the gang members square off for breeding rights.
Dipping his head into a bow, the dominant male shows off his gravitas to others thirsting to challenge him. There’s a lot at stake. Whichever sable antelope male earns the wary submission of the others gets to mate with a harem of females, sometimes 20 strong. Big horns, loud snorts, and dogged willpower decide the day.
When the dominant male has driven off the competition, he corrals his prize (often less than willing) to the territory he now controls. You might say sable antelope society is something like the human equivalent of territorial rule by warlords. A handful of males in a region control a zone of land and everything in it, but not beyond. Stout-hearted male sables have been observed defending and holding their territory for two years or more.
Although a big 600 pound male can drive even formidable predators from his territory, he doesn’t have such a cordial time of it with humans. After years of neglect by the developed world except for the exploitation of its living and physical resources, Africa is coming into its own. And as the young continent starts to assert its own destiny in the 21st century, the future of the sable antelope – alongside all the great mammals of the Serengeti, will once again be directed by one of two paths: one towards conservation or one of destruction.
Home – Sub Saharan Africa, West and South Asia
Habitat – varied, including grasslands, deserts, and tropical forests
Niche – opportunistic predator
Favorite Food – honeybee larvae
Length – up to 3.5 feet nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 30 pounds
Status – Lower Risk
When people think of ferocious animals, they think of the big ones – sharks, lions, tigers, bears. But as it turns out, there are few animals on earth that are stouter of heart than a certain mammal no bigger than a terrier. Cross a honey badger and you cross what Guinness named the most fearless mammal on earth.
The honey badger is native to sub-Saharran Africa and South Asia, living in a variety of habitats in its wide range. From dry savanna to dense forest, it trots over great distances in constant search of food to fuel its impressive metabolism. Seeking safe haven in underground burrows or inside rock crevices, the honey badger is an active hunter in the daylight hours. Most badgers are nocturnal and have poor eyesight, relying instead on a highly developed sense of smell to find food. But the honey badger is built for hunting anything it can get its mouth around during the light of day. Everything from worms and termites up to formidable animals like porcupines and snakes are potential sources of food for this miraculous member of the weasel family.
Being active in the daytime is not the only trait that sets the honey badger apart from other badgers. Indeed, it is only distantly related to what are called “true badgers” – a family that includes the familiar American and Eurasian badgers. The honey badger possesses the long digging claws of its cousins, but its teeth are not as adapted for crushing. It has fewer teeth, but those it has are adapted to biting and holding on tight. It also sports a defense that’s more commonly developed in skunks than badgers. If an enemy gets too close, the honey badger will unleash a chemical assault from its backside. Specialized anal glands secret a nauseating liquid that can drive off even the most fearsome foe.
As the name implies, the honey badger is fond of the sweet stuff of honeybees. And remarkably, through the wonders of evolution, it has devised a rather ingenious way of obtaining it. A certain type of bird in Africa, the black-throated honeyguide is its partner in crime. The honeyguide is able to locate bees’ nests by virtue of its flight, but it has no means of plundering the nest by itself. The bird is too small to brave a swarm of bees and tear open a nest to obtain the honey it wants. Instead, it relies on some hired muscle. After it has located a nest, the next step is for the bird to find a nearby honey badger. Communicating through its flight and calls, the bird will then lead the badger to the nest. Undeterred by the stings on its thick hide, the honey badger will rip the nest to pieces with its strong claws, allowing both badger and bird to feast on the sweet reward of honey and bee larvae.
Aside from its interesting relationship with birds, the honey badger is known for its fearless disposition. Its skin is thick and tough, and hangs loosely from its body, reducing damage to vital organs if it is bitten in a fight. But defense is only part of its reputation. The honey badger can dish out punishment with the best of them. If its noxious chemical musk isn’t enough to drive away an assailant, it can bite with great force and will not let go until its adversary loses consciousness or shakes the badger off. The honey badger proves that bravery in the animal kingdom can come in small packages.
Home – Western Africa
Habitat – tropical forest floor
Niche – large omnivore
Favorite Food – fruit
Length – up to 3 feet
Weight – up to 80 pounds
Status – Vulnerable to Extinction
Threats – hunting, habitat destruction
The rainforests of Central Africa have long been known as dark, forbidding places. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” was set in this otherworldly realm of dense vegetation and hidden dangers. A cryptid named Mokele-Mbembe reputedly lurks in the swamps of the Congo Basin, a lost relic from a distant time in the past. It is a land that is both massive and claustrophobic, a mix of enormous trees with thick underbrush. Many animals blend in among the foliage, but there is one animal that wants to be seent, making its statement with bright, striking coloration under the trees.
Few animals of the Africa boast such unmistakable features as the mandrill. Sky-blue cheeks taper into its bright red nose sitting over a golden beard. The gaudy coloration of the males is their asset in the mating season, where they attempt to outlook and outdo other males in the quest for females, who are 1/3 the size. Pound for pound, male mandrills are the largest monkeys in the world. Unlike monkeys that dwell exclusively in trees, the mandrill’s legs are of equal length, perfectly adapted for running on all fours on the ground like baboons. However, a troop of mandrills will seek safety in the trees when night falls. This adaptation is especially important in a land where formidable predators hunt at night.
Mandrills are omnivorous and spend most of the day foraging on the forest floor for fruit, seeds, insects, fungi, roots, and the occasional small animal. They live in groups called “troops” of about 20 individuals, with some large troops reaching as many as 250. Like baboons, Mandrill society is based around a hierarchy with the dominant male at the top. This male earns the right to mate with the females of the group until another male challenges his dominance. The size difference between male and female mandrills is partly explained through this hierarchy. Generally, males of mammal species that mate with many different females show a much greater size difference than those of species that pair for life.
Socializing helps bind mandrill troops together, and grooming is the most important social activity. Members of the troop will take turns picking insects and parastites from the backs of others when they are resting. Also, members will communicate with each other through grunts. These vocalizations help the group to be alerted of dangers and signal when to move on to a new area of forest. The troops move over great distances and will readily defend their territory against unwelcome outsiders. Males attempt to frighten enemies by “yawning” wide, brandishing their two and a half inch long incisors. If the sight of this alone is not enough to deter a foe, the mandrill will rush forward, barking and grunting loudly to scare it off.
Mandrills are rapidly disappearing in the forests of Cameroon and Gabon they have called home for thousands of years. Increased logging and poaching of these animals has cut their numbers significantly. Once common across the rainforests, mandrills are now vulnerable to extinction.
Home – Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula
Habitat – Desert
Niche – small carnivore
Favorite Food – lizards
Length – up to 28 inches, nose to tail tip
Weight – up to 3 pounds
Status – Unconfirmed
Threats – trapping for fur and for pet trade
The Sahara desert is a land of murderous extremes. Daytime temperatures can spike to 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and below freezing in the dead of night. A cracked landscape of barren rocks, rolling dunes of sand, and very sparse vegetation, the Sahara is not a place where life can have an easy go of it. Most mammals cannot survive in deserts because of the harsh conditions and unavailability of water, but one little mammal has bucked the trend for millenia across the sandy wastes.
The fennec fox is the world’s smallest fox. A full grown adult only weighs in at three pounds, much lighter than a house cat. It inhabits the sandy regions of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and is well-adapted to life in the desert. It has fur on the soles of its feet that serves as a buffer between the fox’s body and the burning hot sand of the Sahara, and its giant ears are packed with blood vessels that help to radiate heat away from the body to keep cool. Its size is also an advantage, allowing it to fit into tight spaces and survive on less food and water than larger mammals need.
The fennec fox is also nocturnal, retreating from the sun’s menacing rays during the day into underground burrows until daylight wanes and the temperature dips to a level more suitable for hunting. As the moon rises over the desert, the fennec fox will leave the safety of its den to hunt the sands and rocky crevices for small animals like lizards and insects. It obtains nearly all of its water from the prey that it consumes, so this little fox can live in extremely arid environments where larger animals would most certainly perish.
Most foxes are solitary, but the fennec foxes will often gather in groups of up to 10 individuals. Each member of the group digs a den several yards long into the ground to rear its young and escape larger predators. Females give birth to litters of between 2 and 5 pups and will remain with them in the den for about three months. Fennec foxes reach maturity quickly, becoming fully grown in less than a year, which is yet another adaptation for surviving in a harsh land.
Despite its hardiness, the fennec fox is becoming increasingly rare, especially across the Arabian peninsula, where hunting for its pelts and trapping the young for pets have cut its numbers. There is still much to learn about this tiny dog of the desert. Hopefully it will be around long enough to answer some of the many riddles about its existence.
