The Kalahari Desert is a vast ecosystem in Southern Africa.
Here are eight facts that tell the story of this austere, beautiful, and ecologically rich place, which has been home to the San people since time immemorial.
1. It’s the seventh-largest desert in the world, shared by three countries
The oryx (gemsbok) is found throughout the Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a vaguely oval-shaped ecosystem in western Southern Africa. The largest portion of the desert lies within southwestern Botswana. Then there’s a big chunk within eastern Namibia. And finally, a small portion falls within northern South Africa.
At 900,000 km2 (350,000 sq mi), the Kalahari Desert is the world’s seventh-largest desert, much larger than the Patagonian, Sonoran, or Atacama Deserts. To frame it another way, it’s more than twice the size of California.
When you include the land encircling the Kalahari Desert, you get the Kalahari Basin, which is 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). This broader ecological region includes the famous Okavango Delta. But note that we focus solely on the Kalahari Desert proper from now on.
2. The word Kalahari might mean ‘thirstland’, but it’s not a true desert
A common ostrich among the varied Kalahari Desert vegetation
The etymology (origin) of the word Kalahari isn’t clear. Some believe it comes from the Tswana words for a thirstland, or waterless place.
The Kalahari is certainly a harsh environment. Inland and sitting on a high plateau, it regularly sees daytime temperatures well above 40°C (104°F), while nights can drop below freezing. Yet the Kalahari isn’t a desert in the true sense of the word. It’s too ‘lush’ for that. Rather, the Kalahari Desert is a semi-arid, sandy savannah (grassland).
Of course, being such a vast ecosystem, you should expect great variations within it. There are places in the Kalahari Desert where you find rippled red sand dunes. But there are also places where tall, nutritious grasses sweep across the landscape much of the year.
3. There are many more animals than you’d expect
Meerkats are one of the Kalahari Desert’s most popular species with tourists
Given the fact that the Kalahari Desert is actually an arid grassland, not a true desert, various hardy grazers and browsers are able to live here. One of the Kalahari’s postcard species is the oryx (gemsbok), a large antelope with striking black-and-white facial markings. It has very long horns that help to defend it against lions. Another species strongly associated with the Kalahari is the meerkat, beloved for its humanlike posture when standing alert.
Other notable Kalahari animals are the black rhino, giraffe, hartebeest, springbok, wildebeest, impala, aardvark, and ostrich.
Of course, where there are herbivores, there’s going to be carnivores and scavengers too. These include the Kalahari lion, cheetah, leopard, painted dog, and brown hyena.
4. The desert’s Makgadikgadi Pans become a wildlife oasis after big rains
Wildebeests on the edge of a salt pan
Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans are a collection of enormous salt flats with sandy grassland between them. In the dry season, it’s mesmerising to walk, cycle, horse ride, or quadbike across the cracked white sands that extend towards hazy horizon lines.
However, the scene changes dramatically after big summer rains. Then, the pans fill with a thin layer of water that hosts countless migratory waterbirds. These include greater flamingoes and great white pelicans, and they make a spectacular scene that attracts birders from around the world.
Various mammals migrate to the flooded Makgadikgadi Pans too. In particular, there’s a great influx from the north of plains zebras, wildebeests, and springboks, attracted by the lush, mineral-rich grass surrounding the pans. Elephants arrive on the scene too. As do predators like lions, hyenas, and cheetahs, who are following the zebra and antelope herds.
5. The Kalahari’s grasses are used to build the world’s largest bird nests
Sociable weavers’ nests vary greatly in size and shape
The birdlife of the Kalahari Desert is rich even without the seasonal oases of the Makgadikgadi Pans. I could comment on many special species, but a truly notable resident is the sociable weaver.
Endemic to Southern Africa, the sociable weaver is a small, sprightly, seemingly unremarkable bird. But it’s famous for building the largest and most complex communal nests on the planet.
Sociable weaver nests are constructed from dry grasses. They look similar to haystacks – just suspended in a canopy or electrical pole. Occasionally, up to 500 birds will live in one nest! Sociable indeed. These nests can grow to weigh one or two tons, and when that happens, they can collapse the tree or pole holding them.
6. The Kalahari has no camels, but the camelthorn tree is its most pivotal plant
Camelthorn trees being pummeled by a sandstorm
Camelthorns are a type of acacia tree endemic to Southern Africa, with the Kalahari Desert being their key habitat. Yet camels aren’t native to Southern Africa. So why the name camelthorn?
The name camelthorn comes from a mistranslation of the Afrikaans word for the tree, kameeldoring. The kameel part means giraffe, even though it looks and sounds similar to the word camel. The doring part means thorn. So the Afrikaans name makes sense, as giraffes do indeed eat the leaves of camelthorns, using their long, prehensile tongues to deftly detach the leaves without being pricked too often by the tree’s thorns.
The camelthorn is an ecosystem engineer, meaning it enriches the environment and thereby enables other plants to grow nearby. Critical to its survival is its long taproot, which reportedly can grow to a depth of 60 m (197 ft). This makes it one of the longest true taproots in the world.
7. The indigenous San people are experts at finding (hidden) plants rich in water
The San have always been hunter-gatherers, and many continue in their traditional lifestyle to this day
The San are hunter-gatherers who’ve managed to survive in the Kalahari Desert for thousands of years. Given how little standing water there is in the desert, especially in the south, they rely heavily on its water-storing plants.
Some are easy to find, like the native tsamma melon, which grows along a vine on the floor and is 90% water. But they also know how to find the hidden bi! bulb, a tuber deep below the surface that draws moisture from the surrounding sand and can store it for months. They look for small signs of disturbed earth, like cracks in the sand, to guess the location of buried bi! bulbs.
8. The Kalahari is renowned for its sunsets and starry skies
The Kalahari Desert sees countless sensational sunsets
The crisp skies of deserts famously throw up the most wonderful sunsets, and the Kalahari is no different. Visitors to the desert are often astounded by the range of intense oranges, pinks, reds, and purples that overtake the sky most evenings.
The Kalahari Desert is also a popular destination for night-sky tourism. While there are a few cities and towns in the desert, the region is, overall, very sparsely populated, so there’s little light pollution. Add to that the cold, clear air of a high plateau, and you get excellent visibility of the Southern Hemisphere’s stars and constellations, like the Southern Cross.
Go on a Kalahari Desert safari
Cape foxes are native to Southern Africa and can be found in the Kalahari
There are wonderful private and public Kalahari game parks in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. If you visit, you can look forward to game drives in some of the remotest corners of Southern Africa, going on guided bush walks in the sort of quietude many of us seldom, if ever, experience, and then cosying around campfires at night to gaze up at endlessly starry skies.
Know that wildlife spotting in the Kalahari Desert is a wholly different sort of experience from a regular savannah safari. The region is highly remote and sees fewer tourists, the landscapes feel rawer, and many of the animals are different. So I encourage everyone to go on a Kalahari Desert safari at least once in their lifetime if possible.
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