Africa is the world’s most diverse continent for large mammals such as antelopes, zebras and elephants. The heaviest of these large mammals top the scales at over one ton, and are referred to as megafauna. In fact, it’s the only continent that has not seen a mass extinction of these megafauna.
The continent’s megafauna community includes the world’s largest terrestrial mammal, the African elephant. Adult African bush elephants can weigh as much as 6 tons. Other giants across African continent include hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses and giraffes.
So, it is only in Africa that ecological interactions and dynamics can be studied as they would have been before the sudden and profound flourishing of Homo sapiens over the past 12 000 years; before then, megafauna would have dominated all terrestrial landscapes on all continents. A visit to Africa is, in other words, a visit to our planet’s past.
