interesting facts and gruesome tales

Now before confusion sets in I AM back in NZ - have been for nearly 3 weeks and I really should have finished this off before i went back to work but...I didn't.

*an elephant can be either right or left tusked - there is a marked difference in size the older an animal gets. The first elephant we saw when on the Chobe trip was living by himself at the edge of the river where he could pull up easy marshy stuff that didn't require too much tusk power. Chibby said he didn't expect to see him for much longer.

*if the rains are tardy in arriving impalas can prolong their pregnancies by up to 3 weeks which explains why there is never any shortage of impalas on a game drive!

*one type of weaver bird always builds its nest on the leeward side of a certain tree (bit short on specifics here) which then acts as a directional marker for those with a tendency to wander about in the bush for one reason or another (really should have written this up whilst it was a tad fresher in my mind!)

*in Baboon World, the females organise themselves on matrilineal lines and just get on with it whilst the males use fear and fisticuffs. Then if something gets up The Big Baboon's nose he whacks the next in line who passes it on to No 3 who seeks out No 4 and so on and so forth. At any given time there are a number of Lesser Baboons wandering around with boxed ears and absolutely no idea what it is they've apparently done this time!

*a young honeymooning French couple were sitting by the Chobe River. He was fishing and she was gazing at his tanned knees (I actually made that bit up) when a 6 metre crocodile exploded out of the water and left a young French widow sitting by the Chobe River. It certainly made us take the Beware of Crocodiles signs around our accommodation very seriously!

*a ranger was asleep out in the bush, in his tent, which was surrounded by an electric fence. A python came calling, having slithered under the fence, and as the tent didn't have a built-in floor, soon made short work of the ranger. No-one would have known why the ranger was no longer reporting for duty EXCEPT that the python attempted to slither back under the fence.....

erk.