ORC collaborator
Mammals and their microbes: Unraveling the gut microbiome of Etosha's herbivores
Working with animal scat may not be the most glamorous way of studying African mammals, but thanks to advancements in molecular...
Blog & News
Update from the field
Dipanjan Naha
- Sep 8
- 2 min
Carnivore, livestock and humans- Living along the edge of Etosha National Park
Human-wildlife conflicts at the interface of protected areas and farmlands are a common problem worldwide. The conflicts are severe when...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Aug 22
- 2 min
Life and death on a roll: dung beetles and honey badgers
Sometimes we come upon curious things while working in the field. It happened a few weeks ago when we noticed strange looking spherical...
John Mendelsohn
- Jul 21
- 3 min
The Cuando (aka Kwando): a river in its own right!
International convention holds that a river should have one name along its entire course, which is normally the name given at its source....
John Mendelsohn
- Jun 30
- 1 min
Feasts of Grasses
ORC has enjoyed visits from several eminent scientists and conservationists in the past year: Paul Maritz (conservationist and software...
ORC Student
- Jun 15
- 3 min
A noisy business: listening to rock hyraxes on Ongava
Wildlife produces a lot of sound. From insects to mammals, including fish and birds, auditory communication –signals emitted through the...
ORC collaborator
- May 27
- 2 min
The early bird gets the worm, but the early termite gets the freezer…
It’s high biomass season here at Ongava which means ORC’s Bio-Indicator Project, funded by Nedbank’s Go-Green Fund, is in full swing. The...
William Versfeld
- May 12
- 2 min
The only Empress moth in the bush...
All living organisms go through stages of growth and reproduction. The emperor moth does its growing and reproducing in remarkable ways....
ORC Intern
- May 4
- 2 min
Sunday shopping done differently
The mopane worm (Gonimbrasia belina) is an unusual edible little critter found in parts of southern Africa. Its life cycle is...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Apr 22
- 2 min
From the field to the lab: there is a (smelly) story written in scats…
Anyone who has ever worked with carnivores knows that this can be a rather smelly business. Whether it involves carcasses or fresh...
ORC Intern
- Apr 6
- 2 min
Curiosity, big and small...
Hello! I´m Tomás Azevedo, a veterinary student from Portugal. As of late I have been learning more about wildlife veterinary care, as...
John Mendelsohn
- Feb 28
- 2 min
Mopane scale insects
When I came to Ongava in mid-2018 its vegetation was extremely sparse and dry. Little rain fell in the 2018/2019 summer, which led to...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Feb 3
- 1 min
Dry season waterhole monitoring
In October 2021, we conducted our annual camera trap monitoring of Ongava's waterholes. For a period of 7 days, we deployed multiple...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Jan 31
- 1 min
Creepy-crawlies bonanza‼
The arrival of the rains not only triggers striking changes in the landscape with the vegetation turning from brown yellow to lush green,...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Jan 24
- 1 min
A spotted rooftop visitor spotted…
The roof top of the Visitor Centre is the best spot to watch the sunset (or the sunrise if you are a morning person…), so it should come...
Dipanjan Naha
- Jan 19
- 2 min
Getting to know Etosha's neighbours
As with other protected areas in the world, Etosha National Park in north-western Namibia has similar problems with humans and dangerous...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Jan 10
- 1 min
When the rain gives you wings...
Every year after the first significant rains, we are witnesses to one of Nature's fantastic shows: the flight of termites. This is the...
ORC Intern
- Dec 27, 2021
- 2 min
Do termites inhibit the germination and growth of nearby plants?
During field trips around Ongava, we see some termite mounds surrounded by areas of bare ground, while other mounds have shrubs, trees...
William Versfeld
- Nov 8, 2021
- 1 min
Finding the Unexpected
Placing camera traps in unusual places can go one of two way: an interesting find or a great disappointment. Camera traps were placed ...
Stéphanie Périquet
- Oct 28, 2021
- 1 min
19°S: Space use by spotted hyaenas
If you are a large carnivore enthusiast, you probably have heard that they are wide ranging species requiring a lot of space to establish...