African Fauna Research Articles

Ixodes heinrichi, sp.nov. from Angola

During an investigation into the tick fauna of Africa, Dr H. Hoogstraal sent me a specimen of a female Ixodes tick collected from Angola, which was deposited in the Chicago Natural History Museum. This is a new species which I describe below under the name of I. heinrichi.

The relations between the South African fauna and the terrestrial and limnic animal life of the southern cold temperate zone

In principle, the fauna of the southern temperate zone should present a general distribution pattern similar to that of the northern temperate zone. The rich invertebrate material preserved in the early Tertiary Baltic amber indicates that, at that time, the similarity was much closer than it is today. But during the Tertiary the cooling climate, in the north, resulted in the recession and extinction of many of those organisms which were rigidly fixed to a certain combination of environmental factors. The Pleistocene glaciations very effectively put a stop to the existence of many such invertebrate species and species groups whose relatives are now regarded as typical relicts. There is no doubt that the influence of the ice ages was comparatively small in the southern temperate zone of the Old World compared to what happened in the north. As regards the African continent it has been supposed that the highest areas in southern Africa, the Maluti Range in eastern Basutoland, at that time were covered with ice. But it was not so. On visiting that area we found that it has been free from ice, and moreover, that it is inhabited by an interesting, largely endemic fauna. Likewise, there is nothing indicating that the South Atlantic islands, the Tristan group and Gough Island, were capped with ice or carried isolated glaciers during the Pleistocene glaciations. Comparatively unchanged climatic conditions made the survival of the preglacial fauna possible.

Whither National Parks?

Wild life preservation in Africa and the national park system has as its foundation the 1933 London Convention for the Protection of African Fauna and Flora. Article 2 of this international convention reads: “The expression national park shall denote an area … set aside for the propagation, protection and preservation of wild animal life and vegetation for the benefit, advantage and enjoyment of the general public …” and … “facilities shall, so far as possible, be given to the general public for observing the fauna and flora in national parks.”

Uganda's National Parks

The Uganda Government has long been subject to much adverse criticism for its apparent reluctance to fulfil its share of the obligations towards wild life which were agreed upon by Great Britain in 1933, at the international conference held in London for the better protection of the African fauna. The world however was then in the throes of a disastrous financial depression, from which recovery was slow, and it was scarcely the time for the small Uganda Protectorate, with its limited resources, to embark on a costly scheme for creating national parks. Moreover, ever since the proclamation of the Protectorate in 1894 Uganda has suffered more severely from rinderpest, that terrible scourge of cattle, than any other British territory in Africa. The direct loss in livestock has been appalling, but the indirect loss, which can be assessed as the measure of the preventive effort on the part of the Veterinary Department, has been positively staggering. Rinderpest has for long been endemic in the regions of Ethiopia to the north-east and never a year has passed without the dread disease appearing on Uganda's northern and eastern frontiers. The wild ungulates introduced, harboured and transmitted the disease—the cattle could be controlled, not so the wild animals except possibly by the repugnant method of destruction. Outside the limits of Uganda few have realized the grim and costly struggle which continued relentlessly year by year, and still fewer have ever appreciated that little Uganda with its gallant band of veterinary workers has again and again staved off disaster from reaching the territories lying to the south and south-west. Rinderpest was no respecter of game reserves in which the disease-stricken ungulates suffered as heavily as anywhere else and therefore there were economic factors of considerable gravity involved in the question of alienation of relatively large areas as national parks. It seemed preferable and wiser to endeavour to free Uganda from the ravages of rinderpest, before setting aside as national parks areas which could function as reservoirs of the disease.

Below the Murchison Falls

For any one interested in birds and beasts, an expedition to the Murchison Falls in Uganda is a truly thrilling experience. On either side of the Victoria Nile, from. Lake Albert to the Falls, is the Bunyoro and Gulu game reserve where, from a boat going up and down the river, one can see an amazing number and variety of African fauna. It is a perfect example of the intense pleasure to be had from watching wild animals in a place where they can live undisturbed by man.

Africa since the Mesozoic: with particular reference to certain biological problems.

SUMMARY. The existing information about the Tertiary geology and elimate of Africa is collated and discussed critically. There is no evidence for a revolution in the climate and fauna of Africa (following incursion from Asia) after the Miocene. The arguments in favour of the equator having remained in its present position through the Tertiary are regarded as stronger than those in favour of its southward shift (through some 45). The passerine avifauna of Africa is analysed by biomes and with respect to its affinity with the avifaunas of Europe and Asia. The difference between the lowland evergreen and the savanna avifaunas is great, at the generic as well as at the specific level; that between the lowland evergreen and the montane evergreen is nearly as great–so much that they must largely have evolved in isolation from each other. Floristic evidence is adduced and compared with the faunistic. The bio‐geographical data are discussed in relation to the geological and the climatic.

Man and the Zebra

The African fauna has been subjected to pressure from two far distant sources. In the north the well armed Moors and Arabs have long ruled the land, and it is in this region that the faunal population has been most seriously depleted. The Atlantic Ass, depicted in Roman mosaics, disappeared long ago, the Rufous Gazelle and Bubal Hartebeeste have likewise vanished.

The Kruger—An Outsider's Point of View

The inspiration of most recent thought upon National Parks springs from the work done in 1933 at the London Conference for the Protection of African Fauna and Flora. The definition there adopted for the term “National Park” was, shortly, that it should mean an area placed under public control and set aside for the protection of wild animal life and wild vegetation, for the benefit and enjoyment of the general public. From this definition, already shortened, it is important to extract the object for which a National Park is formed and for which it is maintained. This object is the protection of wild life. It is not the enjoyment of the general public, for that is a different thing altogether, a result following the attainment of the object.

III.—Thirteen noteworthy additions to the South-East African Marine fauna

III.—<i>Thirteen noteworthy additions to the South-East African Marine fauna</i>

The Future of the African Fauna

Captain Keith Caldwell, in his admirable report of a faunal survey in Eastern and Central Africa conducted in 1947, says: “… Were one of the old hunters who operated fifty years ago to visit Eastern Africa to-day, he would find vast districts in which he used to shoot completely denuded of game; in fact, it is probable that the game areas have been reduced by half, and the game within many of those left by 75 per cent.”That, I think, is a fair estimate: a reduction of the fauna of Eastern and Central Africa to between a half and one-quarter of what it was half a century ago. The same applies more or less, but mostly more, to the whole of Africa south of the Sahara. The question before us now is what will be the state of this unique assemblage of fauna, including many species found nowhere else in the world, at the end of the next half-century?

The 1950 Tanganyika Game Bill

That the Government of Tanganyika is taking seriously its obligations under the 1933 International Convention for the Protection of African Fauna and Flora, is shown by the draft of the new Game Bill. The explanatory note particularly reflects an appreciation of the value of wild life and a realization that the world to-day is watching with growing concern the depreciation of the fauna of Africa. It will hardly be disputed that the new Bill exceeds in courage and imagination any game preservation legislation previously attempted in the country, and it will be the earnest hope of lovers of nature everywhere, particularly of the members of the Fauna Preservation Society, that the effort meets the success which it deserves.

The Geographical Distribution of Ancestral Man

The latest studies of fossil Mammals appear to show that the Upper Pliocene and Pleistocene mammalian faunas of Europe were chiefly immigrants from the Asiatic region (35). The corresponding faunas of Africa seem to have been derived chiefly from the same source (28, 35). The distribution of the stone implements of Palaeolithic Man also can be best explained by supposing that the successive human races who made them started in Asia, and migrated westwards in two divergent streams to Europe and Africa respectively (6). Until the latest phase of the Pleistocene, there cannot have been any direct communication between the men of northern Africa and those of southern Europe. Man, indeed, like the other mammals seems to have originated in the Asiatic region.

The Linnean Society and National Parks

As a result of the discussion on the objects of national parks held by the Linnean Society of London on December 8 (NATURE, 142, 1087; 1938) and subsequent debates, the Society has adopted the following resolution: “The Linnean Society of London accepts the definition employed in the African Fauna Convention as an ideal for the preservation of Nature; but it knows that the term ‘National Park’ has been given to areas which for various reasons are unsuitable for inclusion within the definition,—e.g. too limited or situated too near populated areas. For such it recommends the setting apart within each Park of special nature reserves under proper control; and it would like all authorities with power over Parks to seek advice from such bodies of naturalists as are competent to give it.” The definition given by the African Fauna Convention (H.M. Stationery Office. Treaty Series, No. 27. London, 1933) is as follows: “The expression ‘national park’ shall denote an area (a) placed under public control, the boundaries of which shall not be altered or any portion be capable of alienation except by the competent legislative authority, (6) set aside for the propagation, protection and preservation of wild animal life and wild vegetation, and for the preservation of objects of aesthetic, geological, prehistoric, historical, archaeological, or other scientific interest for the benefit, advantage, and enjoyment of the general public, (c) in which the hunting, killing or capturing of fauna and the destruction or collection of flora is prohibited except by or under the direction or control of the park authorities. In accordance with the above provisions facilities shall, so far as possible, be given to the general public for observing the fauna and flora in national parks.”

The Disappearing Fauna of Africa

THE problem of the disappearing fauna of Africa formed the subject of a lecture before the University of London Animal Welfare Society on March 7. It has been common knowledge for years that the status of many of the big African animals was precarious. The last quagga died in 1882, and the three big pachyderms have been killed off at an alarming rate. Not only are the indigenous beasts being wiped out under the ‘protecting’eye of a white civilization, but also the majority of many species are dying unnecessarily cruel deaths at the hands of the African native, working with old-fashioned guns and pitfalls and traps. Possibly only a few thousand gorillas remain alive to-day, in the Cameroons, where they are exploited by man, and in the Pare National Albert, where they are protected by the Belgian Government. The elephant has disappeared from most of its old haunts. In the three British dependencies a minimum of 6,000 a year are killed, chiefly in the ‘control campaign’. Tanganyika and the lake swamps are the last haunts of the hippopotamus, and unless help is forthcoming this will eventually disappear. On November 8, 1933, the London Convention for the Protection of the African Fauna and Flora was signed. The first of a series of subsequent international conferences should have taken place before November 1937. No conference has been held, the reason given being that the British Government intends to summon a conference on tropical Asia and the western Pacific, certain of the experts interested in those regions being also interested in Africa. At the meeting, the Society passed a resolution calling upon the Government to take urgent steps for summoning the London Convention for the Protection of the African Fauna promised for November 1937.

Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Oldoway-Expedition 1913

THE fossil remains of mammals found in the Middle Pleistocene freshwater deposits at Oldoway in Tanganyika Territory are interesting because they include several survivors from the Pliocene period, mingled with a typical modern African fauna. Primitive elephants, such as Dinotherium and Mastodon, and three-toed horses, which became extinct in Europe before the Pleistocene period, lived in east Africa until towards the end of this period, and were associated with numerous mammals which are only varieties of those still existing on the same continent. We therefore welcome another instalment of Dr. H. Reek's valuable volume on the collection of these fossil mammals which he made in 1913, and look forward to the early publication of a similar report on the second collection made in 1931 by Dr. Leakey's expedition, in which Dr. Reck also took part. Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse der Oldoway-Expedition 1913 Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. H. Reck. Neue Folge Heft 4. Pp. 142 + 8 plates. (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1937.) 34 gold marks.

The Shinyanga Game Experiment: A Few of the Early Observations

A NOTE on the object of the experiment is perhaps called for. The game animals feed the tsetse flies and act as hosts also for the pathogenic trypanosomes. In consequence their extermination has frequently been advocated and in some colonies great slaughters have already taken place. I have personally taken the view that the game fauna of Africa is too precious an asset to be lightly destroyed if we can find any other means of destroying the tsetses; and we have laid ourselves out, as a Department, to discover these other means. At the same time it is certain that a modicum of game destruction must here and there take place where other measures will not suffice. I accordingly laid down this scheme of experiment, which Harrison is carrying out so ably, for the purpose of learning all we can of the relations of the game animals and the flies, in order to ascertain the minimum amount of game destruction which will anywhere suffice for our purpose, and with the idea, also, of supplying the scientific control which has been lacking in the great slaughters of game that have taken place elsewhere. In conjunction with these experiments, the preferences of the flies are being tested in the laboratory: it may be that some species of mammals are nauseous to the flies and need not be attacked. Irritability, tendency to use open country, and defensive fur may protect other species. The mere absence of the animals from the flies' feeding grounds in the period of stress (late dry season) may suffice. We are still at the beginning of the subject, but I wish to make it clear meantime that the hope underlying the experiment is that, where game destruction has to be used, discriminative destruction may suffice.

The London Convention for the Protection of African Flora and Fauna

The London Convention for the Protection of African Flora and Fauna

Lönnberg on the African FaunaThe Development and Distribution of the African Fauna in Connection with and Depending upon Climatic Changes Einar Lönnberg

Lönnberg on the African FaunaThe Development and Distribution of the African Fauna in Connection with and Depending upon Climatic Changes Einar Lönnberg

Notes on the Mosquitos of Madagascar, Mauritius and Réunion

Through the kindness of Mons. E. Séguy, of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, I have recently been enabled to examine a considerable number of mosquitos from Madagascar and the neighbouring French islands, including the types or co-types of all the species described from Madagascar by Ventrillon. As the examination of this material has disclosedthe existence of several species hitherto unrecorded from these islands, aswell as some new synonymy, it has been thought desirable to record the results at once. In the following pages all the species of mosquitos hitherto known from this region are dealt with. The total number is only 28, as compared with about 180 in the African fauna, so that it is highly probable that further collecting would produce many others.

Notes on the Ethiopian Fruit-flies of the Family Trypaneidae, other than Dacus.—III.

The new material received from the Imperial Bureau of Entomology through the kindness of the Director, Dr. G. A. K. Marshall, enables me to prepare this third paper on the Ethiopian fruit-flies. It is a proof of the great richness of the African Trypaneid fauna that of over 41 species received only 10 were referable to previously described species, and that no less than 8 new genera have been erected, most of them for very strikingly characterised forms.