Rose’s Blog Day 2–Mom I Saw a Wildebeest!

It’s about time my blog entries circle around to my assigned taxon for the course: Alcelaphini. If you don’t know what that means, it’s okay! I didn’t either!

Alcelaphini (also known as Alcelaphinae) is a tribe/subfamily/whatever you want to call it in the order Bovidae (aka bovids aka things that are kind of related to cows). It encompasses many species that those unfamiliar with East African mammals likely haven’t heard of: blesbok and bontebok, hirola and kirigum, and the list goes on. However, one member of the Alcelaphini tribe is, dare I say, famous. That animal is the wildebeest. And, if you couldn’t already guess, I observed a very special animal today.

my children.

During our morning game drive in Tarangire National Park, we saw not one, not two, but THREE common wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) just sitting in dry grassy savannas, grazing away. I originally chose Alcelaphini for my taxon because of my mother and her obsession with wildebeest in nature documentaries; specifically, their extraordinarily high fertility rate because, as she puts it, “everyone eats them, they need to make lots of babies.” So, look Mom! I saw a wildebeest!

I must offer some honorable mentions for species. Another Alcelaphini, a Coke’s hartebeest, was also spotted in the distance during our morning drive. Several of my bucket list large herbivores were spotted just outside of our lodge: two herds of African bush elephants, and too many plains zebras to count. I also (mildly) freaked out upon seeing a sausage tree for the first time, and at the sheer scale of the baobabs peppering the grasslands of Tarangire. The grey-brown, pocketed, pithy bark of every baobab tree that we saw was completely stripped within three meters of the ground. Turns out, baobab bark is a tasty treat for the elephants strolling through the park. 

And one last honorable mention, this one for the sunset that we watched atop the aptly named Sunset Hill. There, I witnessed two things for the first time: a tick and a near-equator sunset. The tick would have been rather unremarkable if it weren’t the first one I’d ever seen up close and very much so on my pants (catalyzing what I like to call the “Brief Tick Panic of Sunset Hill”). The sunset, however, was remarkable in many ways. We had a panoramic view of the surrounding grassland while atop the hill and scanned the grasses, spotting warthogs and zebra as the sun set. Eventually, when the sun was below the eastern escarpment, the sky began a symphony of pale yellow and violet, growing lighter and darker all at once while casting magnificent rays out into the surrounding sky. Pictures enclosed (but they don’t do it justice). 

A beautiful end to an even more beautiful day!!

Thanks for following along,

Rose <3