#skeleton coast namibia

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Shipwreck Lodge, Skeleton Coast Park, Mowe Bay, Namibia,

Nina Maritz Architects

[ltwilliammowett]

An unknown wreck on the Skeleton Coast, Namibia

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Shipwreck on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast

[england-would-fall]

hello my darlings

i was on a 3+ week roadtrip and immediately began a fast and furious relocation back to the U.S. (family back home needs us). please keep tagging me in things! i’ll get back on track at some point, promise!

Enjoy this photo of seals I saw chillin’ on the Namibian Skeleton Coast

[wanderlustjennifer]

Off Namibia's Skeleton Coast

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Skeleton Coast, Namibia.

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Discovering Namibia: A Traveler's Guide to the Jewel of the Desert

Are you ready to embark on an unforgettable journey through the heart of southern Africa? Namibia, a land of vast deserts, rugged coastlines, and diverse wildlife, beckons travelers with its untamed beauty and rich cultural heritage. In this comprehensive travel guide, we’ll delve into Namibia’s fascinating history, highlight its top attractions, and provide essential tips for planning your…

[emordnilap-fr]

thinking abt fucked up hydrology again thanks to the haunted hydrology lady . i need more insane stuff. gonna put a lake that holds onto its dead somewhere but i gotta figure out where exactly <- ideas for ice flight lovers of terrible things remember that freshwater lakes that are very cold don't let bodies decompose (see: lake tahoe, lake superior)

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dream shipwrecked

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Skeleton bay is on the skeleton coast in Namibia Africa

A long left handed point break with a sand bottom

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Namib Sand Geckos: these nocturnal geckos have biofluorescent markings that emit a bright, neon-green glow when exposed to the moonlight

This species (Pachydactylus rangei) is found only in the Namib Desert, which stretches across Namibia, Angola, and South Africa; the geckos typically inhabit the arid, coastal region known as the Skeleton Coast.

In order to escape from the blistering heat of the desert, they use their webbed feet to burrow down into the sand during the day, and then emerge only at night, when the temperature has finally dropped. The webbing on their feet also enables them to run more easily across the dunes.

Namib sand geckos are covered in translucent scales, but they also have a strangely colorful appearance, as the colors/shades of their circulatory system, spinal column, internal organs, and optical membranes remain partially visible through the skin, producing various shades of pink, dark blue, purple, magenta, orange, and yellow.

They also have several distinctive markings running along their lower flank and encircling their eyes; these markings are known to fluoresce when exposed to UV light (including moonlight), emitting a bright, neon-green glow.

Some researchers have theorized that the biofluorescent markings may act as a signal to other geckos, allowing them to locate one another in the vast, desolate expanse of the desert, as this paper explains:

The fluorescent areas of P. rangei are concentrated around the eyes and along the lower flanks. This positioning is practically invisible to predators with a higher perspective (e.g. birds and jackals), but highly conspicuous from a gecko’s perspective. As P. rangei is sociable but generally solitary, and occurs at low population densities, such a signal might serve to locate conspecifics over greater distances ...

Encounters in P. rangei might serve purposes beyond mating opportunities: as the Namib desert has extremely low precipitation, fog is a key water source for its flora and fauna. Fog condenses on the bodies of the geckos, and they lick it from their faces. In husbandry, we have observed individuals licking water from conspecifics, taking advantage of a much greater available surface area.

Additionally, after short periods of isolation, the geckos run to meet each other. The combination of vital hydration with socialisation might reinforce signals that enable such meetings, and the cost of visibility to predators with higher vantage points, might constrain the signals to regions best visible from eye-level and below.

The Namib sand gecko is the only terrestrial vertebrate that is known to use an iridophore-based form of biofluorescence (you can find a more detailed explanation of that mechanism in the article mentioned above). The fluorescent dermal markings are also unique to this species.

Sources & More Info:

Scientific Reports: Neon-green fluorescence in the desert gecko Pachydactylus rangei caused by iridophores

Animal Diversity Web: Pachydactylus rangei

Dr. Mark D. Scherz's Blog: A Neon-Green Glowing Gecko!

Australian Geographic: Skeleton Coast - Namibia's strange desert dwellers

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Skeleton Coast-Namibia 📷Solly Levi

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Skeleton Coast, Namibia

📷Solly Levi Photography

[tsalala]

Lions in Namibia’s northwest, renowned for eking out a living amid the Namib Desert’s harsh gravel plains and endless dunes, have a history of feeding on marine species, such as Cape fur seals, beached whales, and cormorants. Remarkably, they are the only lions known to target marine prey. But in the 1980s, the desert lions abandoned the coast after local farmers wiped out most of the population.

When lions returned in 2002, it was a sign that the population was recovering. But the animals were no longer hunting marine prey, and lion ecologist Philip Stander, who founded DLCT, worried that the population had lost the knowledge.

In the last eight years, though, three orphaned lionesses, known to the researchers as Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, have led a coastal hunting revival on the beaches around Torra Bay.

[…] The lionesses started targeting coastal prey in 2015, when a drought decimated the park’s mountain zebras, springboks, oryxes, and ostriches. To replace these dietary staples, the young lionesses turned to marine birds, mainly cormorants, flamingos, and red-billed teals.

Then, in 2018, DLCT scientists spotted the lionesses hunting fur seals—some of the first lions to do so in four decades. In a subsequent diet study that spanned 18 months, Stander observed that marine foods, particularly cormorants, seals, and flamingos, accounted for 86 percent of the lionesses’ diet.

A radio collared lioness with a bloody mouth feasting on the remains of her kill along the seashore. Photo by Naude Dreyer.