A YEAR IN THE WILD
EP.5. The middle of the year sees the Okavango Delta’s channels flooded and waterholes filled to the brim, even though the rains already stopped around April. At 15.000km2 the Okavango Delta is the world’s largest inland delta with massive expanses of wetlands, but it can’t compete with the size of Brazil’s Pantanal region. This is a wetland that sprawls over an area of at least 140.000km2, with 80% of its floodplains submerged during the rainy season. Coral reefs, too, support an extraordinarily colourful diversity of life, despite their home in nutrient-poor tropical waters. All too often, the inhabitants of neighbouring homes pick fights with each other over territory, food or mating rights. Coastal marsh crabs in the Seychelles are no exception, busily collecting white flowers and defending their prizes against the attentions of other crabs. Day-to-day survival is always hard work in the natural world, and clashes with neighbours are common. At this time of year, the buffalo herds of the Okavango Delta are in prime condition, following the months of plenty after the rainy season. For the Xakanaxa lion pride, they are the preferred prey item, and they are often found hard on the heels of the buffalo. Just as the individual lions in a single pride join forces to ensure the survival of the pride’s members, leafcutter ants also work together for the greater good of their colony. Their colonies are huge, numbering 3 to 8 million ants in a single nest, which can measure 15 metres across and 5 metres deep. Such large colonies require a lot of food, and supplying their precious fungus with enough plant material to grow means that within the tropical forests of South America, leaf cutter ants collectively consume almost 20% of the annual vegetation growth, making them the dominant herbivore around. For ragged-tooth sharks, it is time to congregate at the Aliwal Shoal off South Africa’s coastline. Up to 50 ragged-tooth sharks can be seen bunched together in underwater caves and under ledges, showing tell-tale signs of scars and aggressive altercations that indicate their mating season has started.
