We recently posted some of Norm’s pictures
from his adventures on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa .
After conquering the mountain, he somehow had enough energy to go on a 4-day
safari in the African savanna.
From Wikipedia:
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland
ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that
the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the
ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses...
The closed forest types such as broadleaf
forests and rainforests are usually not grazed owing to the closed structure
precluding grass growth, and hence offering little opportunity for grazing. In
contrast the open structure of savannas allows the growth of a herbaceous layer
and are commonly used for grazing domestic livestock.
The quote directly refers to the
suitability of savannahs to grazing domestic livestock. However, this
undoubtedly also applies to non-domestic grazing species. The presence of
grazing herds also attracts carnivorous and many other animal species. And it
is the open canopy tree growth that allows this ecosystem dynamic to flourish.
Norm’s pictures demonstrate the vitality
that plains of grass and open-canopy tree distributions allow.
We'll show some of the carnivorous species in a future post.
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