Savanna

Introduction Savanna:
=Savanna=

African Elephant
//Common Name: Savanna Elephant// Life Cycle: Elephants are very social, and learn about what to eat, where to find water and how to behave from their mothers and older bulls. They grew up without the influence of their mothers or older bulls. It is thought that without role models they didn't know how to behave and were taking out their aggressions inappropriately on the rhinos. Older bulls were brought in to teach them how to behave themselves.

Reproducive Cycle: Elephants are ready to mate at the age of 15 to 16, usually able to fight with other bulls in the herd. The mating pair will sometimes separates from the herd for a couple weeks. After 21 to 22 months a calf is born. The calf can follow the herd after just a few days. Cows can have 5-6 calves in a lifetime.

Food to Survive: Elephants eat roots, grasses, fruit, and bark. An adult elephant can handle up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in a day. Elephants drink water by sucking it up with their trunks and spraying it into their mouths. They pick up food with their trunks, put it into their mouths, chew it and then swallow. Elephants eat mainly leaves and grass and drink a lot of water (190 litres per day). They eat all day long. They need up to 200 kg of food is needed daily.

Interesting Facts: = Senegal Gum Acacia =
 * They keep the savannas clear by eating shrubs and trees which helps the grass grow. This allows the many grazers on the savanna to survive.
 * Today there are about 150,000 elephants in the world. They are endangered because poachers and hunters kill them for their ivory tusks to sell.
 * They communicate with sounds lower than human hearing.
 * There are 4 to 5 toes on the front feet and only 3 toes on the back feet.

**Common Name(s):** Gum Arabic, Senegal Gum, Kher, Kumta

The acacia lives through long periods of drought. They grow in sandy places where there is only between 12 to 15 inches of rain a year. Periods without rain last from 5 to 11 months a year.

The acacia is a small to average sized thorn tree of the African grassland savanna. It can grow up to 20 meters tall. It has alot of branches that spread out into a flat and rounded top. These branches have many thorns that come in pairs. The leaves are grey-green. They are yellow or cream colored and grow on spikes above the thorns. The flowers turn into seed pods about 8 inches long and 2-3 inches wide. They look like huge dried up pea pods, and are yellowish to brown in color, and flat.

(mike)

1.//The Baobab is also a very common tree in Africa especially in the island of Madagascar. This tree can also be called **boab**, **boaboa**, **bottle tree** or **monkey bread tree**. It can reach a really high height from 5-25m and the trunk can have a diameter of 7m. 2.Baobabs are known to be long living trees. Some seem to have lived thousands of years hough it is impossible to tell if it is really true since its wood doesn’t produce annual rings. 3.Its leaves are used in Malawi, Zimbabawe and Sahel as vegetable leaves while in Nigeria they are known as **Kuka** and are used to make the Kuka Soup. Its fruit is very nutrient and is known as **Monkey Bread**. Its seeds can be added to soups or can be squeezed to make vegetable oil. It can make fibre, dye and fuel.



Bermuda Grass  __ Life Cycle __ : Bermuda grass originally came from the savanna s  of Africa and is the common name for all the East African species of Cynodon. It grows in open areas where there are frequent disturbances such as grazing, flooding, and fire. Although most of these species have remained in Africa, today Cynodon dactylon is found in warm climates all over the world between 45° south and 45° north latitude. It can be found growing in pastures and the understories of open woodlands and orchards. It is called bermuda grass in the United States because it was introduced from the Bermuda Island.  __Reproductive Cycle __: It also reproduces from roots under the ground.  Bermuda grass reproduces through seeds and through runners and rhizomes. The seedheads are on 1-3 inch (3-7 cm) spikes and are themselves about 2 inches long. Bermuda grass will put out seeds about 3 months after planting. The seeds germinate at temperatures above 68° F (20° C), and begin to grow within 2 weeks. One plant can cover an area of 3 square yards (2.5 sqm.) in just 150 days after germinating.   __Food To Survive __: It prefers moist and warm climates, and where there is more than 16 inches (410 mm) of rainfall a year. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> __<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Interesting Facts: __ ·  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">To the Hindu in India, bermuda grass was a sacred grass because it fed their sacred cows. In ancient Roman days they squeezed the juice from the stems and used it as a diuretic and and astringent to stop bleeding. ·  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">Bermuda grass is considered a very invasive and competitive weed. ·  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">It was the most widely grown pasture and turf grass in the South. Bermuda grass is highly nutritional for cattle and can be fed to sheep.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">Common Names: **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Georgia','serif';">Bahama Grass, Devil's Grass, Couch Grass, Wire Grass, Indian Doab

Caracal
 * Common Names:** Caracal, desert lynx, itfah, anaq al ardh, washag



__Life Cycle__: Felis caracal can be found in the Veld Grassland in South Africa, and in central Africa and India from 30° North to 35° South latitude and from 20° East to 25° West longitude. This environment is generally dry and hot. The cat's habitat can also be savannah, scrub and acacia woodlands, or mountains and hilly areas.

__Reproductive Cycle__: The caracal male is sexually mature at 12-15 months of age, and the female at 14-16 months. They mate year-round. Their gestation period is 69-78 days, and they usually have 1 to 6 young. The kittens weigh about 10.5 oz. __Food To Survive__: They are active at night, mostly hunting smaller mammals, such as rabbits and porcupines, or even larger mammals like sheep, young antelope or deer. They have a special skill at catching birds. Their strong legs enable them to jump high enough to actually bat birds out of the air with their large paws. __Interesting Facts__:
 * Its head/body is 24-36 inches long, and its tail is 9-12 inches long. Its shoulder height is 15-20 inches. Its weight is 28-42 lbs.
 * It is faster than any other cat its size.
 * The male does not help to raise the children; caracals live alone, not in pairs or groups, except when the mother raises the cubs.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">Nigriceps Ant

__Life Cycle__: The tree of choice for the nigriceps ant and its competitors is the whistling thorn acacia. Besides having regular thorns, the whistling thorn acacia also has modified thorn pairs which are joined at the base by a hollow, bulbous swelling up to 3cm in diameter. These thorns provide excellent nest sites for the ants. The ants have adapted to living in trees because the soil, known as "black cotton", gets waterlogged and spongy during the rainy season, and dries out and cracks during the dry season. This makes it difficult for ants to build nest underground. The acacia's have special glands called "nectaries" at the tips of their leaves that produce a sweet secretion just to feed the ants. __Reproductive Cylce:__ Ants are social insects and live in large colonies like bees. There are three types of ants in a colony; a queen, sterile female workers, and males whose only duty is to mate with future queens. The queen matures, mates and then lays eggs for the rest of her life. Ants go through four stages of their development: egg, larva, pupa and adult.

__Food To Survive__: The ants also prune off all flower buds so the tree can't bear fruit and reproduce, and is therefore sterile

__Interesting Facts:__
 * Ants don't have lungs, instead taking in oxygen through small holes all over their body and letting off carbon dioxide through the same holes.
 * One stomach is called the social stomach and is used to carry food back to the nest to feed the larvae. Once the food is mixed with gastric juices of the second stomach it can't be regurgitated.
 * Like all ants, the nigriceps' body is divided into three main parts; the head, thorax and abdomen. They also have an exoskeleton, meaning that the skeleton is on the outside and isn't covered by skin, muscles, or tissue.