Tsavo East National Park in Kenya is famous for its “red elephants” and big tuskers. The elephants are not red of course, but the soil is full of red clay, and when the elephants are freshly “dusted”, and in the right light, they certainly look red. Elephants dust or mud themselves to protect their skin from the sun and insects. All elephants do it. It is just that the soil of Tsavo East turns them red when they do. The big tusks of Tsavo East are more of a mystery. Elephants with big tusks are increasingly rare in other areas of Kenya and Tanzania, but many remain at Tsavo East. No one knows exactly why. Sony RX10iv at 90mm, 350mm and 600mm. Program mode. Processed in Polarr. Note the corrugated tongue on the close-up. 🙂

Masai Giraffe

For the first several days of our safari, through Tsavo East and West, and Amboseli, the one animal we did not have close encounters with was the Giraffe. This is as close as we got: a Masai Giraffe (the most common in East Africa), at Tsavo East. (Some spell it “Maasai Giraffe” though I have not seen Masai spelled that way except in the name of this Giraffe.) You can tell it is a Masai by the irregular shapes of the patches. It is a male, and even if you could not see the obvious, the horns have no feathering. We did get closer (much closer) to Masai Giraffes on Crescent Island on Lake Naivasha, but, though living wild now, they were introduced there for the filming of “Out of Africa.” And we saw Rothschild’s Giraffes, also introduced, at Lake Nakuru, where the rarest of the African Giraffes maintains a healthy herd. Most authorities still consider the three varieties of Giraffes in Africa as sub-species or even “varieties” of the same species, through some have proposed full species status for each of them. They do freely hybridize where their ranges overlap. As to the interesting question of why the Giraffe has such a long neck…most, including Darwin, theorized that it developed due to a competitive advantage in reaching the highest foliage. That makes sense. However more recent thinking is that the longer necks and heavier heads of the biggest males provide a much more direct advantage to males who have them…in that “necking” (see a previous post of two Giraffes at Hell’s Gate doing that) is their only form of combat…and more successful males get more opportunities to mate. Of course, it could just be that the creator needed a big tall browser to keep the acacia trimmed to those classic African umbrella shapes across the African savannas…as this fellow is busy doing. Sony RX10iv at 200 and 600mm equivalents. Program mode. Processed in Polarr.