Thursday, January 19, 2012

All ears for 800.000 years!


Known for its enormous ears, this woolly and very interesting little fox is a spectacular creature. Roaming the savannas of Africa since the mid Pleistocene era, the bat eared fox is equipped exactly for what it likes doing most. And that is hunting!


















Though most of its diet consists of crunchy dung beetles, scorpions, millipedes and heaps of termites, this cunning little fox will eat small birds and rodents too. Since it prefers insects, often bat eared foxes are found close to herds of zebra and antelopes and feed on the insects that come along. And since we have plenty of those Lamai Serengeti offers a chance of seeing it!


















But above all the bat eared fox is a very sociable creature and that makes it interesting to observe. Mated pairs interact all the time and are thought to be monogamous. Also bat eared foxes don’t mind sharing their territory with other foxes and often overlap. The highest density of bat eared foxes recorded is 72 in 1 square mile!


















But ho! It’s not an easy animal to find. As in our case yesterday afternoon it required a lot looking for ear sticking out of the endless plains basically!


















Rewarded with tons of interaction around their underground den, these two foxes ran, dug, played and jumped together.

A pleasure for the eye – and the camera!

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