Bat-Eared Foxes, Pangolins, Telemetry and More...

A fun giraffe sighting!  We watched them chewing the bones from carrion for the calcium.  Spooky- bone-eating giraffes... 

A Pangolin eating! A Pangolin is an insect eating mammal. It is the most poached animal in the world for its ivory scales. We got to spend the afternoon with Wendy Panaino one of the top Pangolin researchers in the world.  Wendy and many of her fellow researchers at Tswalu Research Center- Dedeben- are working together to measure how climate change is impacting not only individual species, but also the links and interactions between species and the ecosystem as a whole... it is awesome to understand- the Kalahari is at the frontlines of measuring the impacts of climate change because it is such a fragile environment.

Giraffe!

The full moon!  Watching it rise over the Kalahari was incredible....

Meerkat sighting! 

A pangolin's funny walk!

Tilly Mahlatse, a Bat Eared Fox researcher, and Mary spreading raisins for the Foxes to get used to the cage, and to eat the raisins so they can be on camera!  Eventually Tilly will collar a few foxes so she can better understand their behavior and how they are responding to climate change impacts.  Tilly and Wendy work closely together....their team is called the Kalahari Endangered Ecosystem Project- K.E.E.P.- @KalahariProject and on Facebook...

Mary and Tim on a scenic hike above Dedeben research center....we went about 2 miles into the mountains...

Mary using the Pangolin tracking device with Wendy. 

Today Mary got to try the Total Station, a machine that can track where the artifacts are found in the lot! Tim did some more sifting (his speciality)! 

The Total Station get triangulated each morning to known points and then is able to pinpoint the location of each artifact to within a few millimeters.  The team is then able to create a 3-D map of the site and the artifacts.  Pretty cool stuff...

It was another long day but it went really quickly.  Mares is staying out of the way of the Total Station laser in this photo....

After you finish excavating a lot you are interviewed about it- how many artifacts, what the sediment was like, any unique features.  Mares and Bakara closed out a plot and were interviewed by Rachel.  Tonight the team is going back at midnight to excavate a few key artifacts which will be wrapped in tinfoil and shipped to a lab that has developed a way to tell when the last time was that sunlight hit quartz and quartzite....they are hoping that this will prove without doubt - as they strongly believe- that these are 300,000 year old stone tools and some of the first evidence of planned stone carving and shaping...that technique would be a first as well...

The Quarry!

An artifact!

Today we went to an archeological dig in the South Kalahari! The site was in a large quarry, and we were working in a small area. When the quarry was being dug, it unearthed huge amounts of tools, cores (the rocks from which the tools were chipped off of), and flakes (the random chips)! This area was once a lake which the scientists could tell because of the organisms found in the soil... pretty awesome stuff! Today we sifted through the extra stone just to see if the excavators missed anything! Then after lunch Mary got a chance to actually do some of the excavation, where she uncovered pieces from the middle stone age, about 300,00 years old!) These would have been tools from the earliest humans! Today they also found a piece of wood that might have been from a fire! 

Mary working in one of the very carefully logged and tracked sections.

Mary and Tim holding a bag which contains some of the artifacts. 

                                           

We have made it to Tswalu! After almost a day of travel!
We are staying with scientists in a little community called the Tswalu Research Center. We had a three hour drive from Upington to the center. Today we saw a Warthog, Baboons, Rabbit remains (most likely eaten by an owl), a Cape Ground Squirrel, and many birds. Including the Yellow Horn Bill and the Redcrested Korhaan! 

An awkward selfie by a gorgeous sunset! 

Dad was able to get better at spit in the communal kitchen. 

We are so excited to go to South Africa tomorrow!