Close-up of a lions tongue

You can see the barbs on the tongue which are enough to take the skin off your hand were she to lick it lovingly. :)

Dahlias - Part 1

I love flowers!! There is no end to the variety and color of them. These dahlias are amongst my favorites.

A tapping beetle

This tapping beetle must think this is a meal fit for a king....at least for him anyway. :) This little fellow is about 1 1/2 inches long. They tap their rear ends on the ground then stop and listen to hear if some female taps back. WHAT a way to pick up a partner!! LOL!!

Pilansberg Game Reserve - Part 3

I came across this female rhino with her young calf. I have never seen such a long horn before.
The elephants were have a dust bath in a dry dam. This helps them get rid of ticks and fleas.
Even a weed can be beautiful.
There are many kinds of dung beetles and they come in various colors. Their eggs are in the centre of this ball and they roll it to a place and bury it using their hind legs. When the eggs hatch, they have food available to them.
The wings on this beautiful is transparent.

In the summer, butterflies come in all shades and patterns.
This little foal stuck close to his mothers side. When young, the stripes are more brown than black.
The hippo were catching some sun on the banks of the dam. A few weeks later when I went back, the water was overflowing the wall at the back of the picture.
Springbuck are our national animal. They were first seen by the earlier settlers in this country and are plentiful in certain areas.
When it was time to leave and come back home, I found this bug in my car...maybe he wanted to go home with me, but I wasn't having no hitch hikers in my car. LOL!!

An African winter sunset

Yesterday I found myself on top of a high hill at sunset and took these pictures. Now I have taken pictures of sunsets before but wanted to try something different and came up with these. It is more a play on light, shadow and shapes than actual sunsets. The photographs have not been cropped or manipulated in any way. I am not sure if they are good or bad so would appreciate comments.

Isn't he just the cutest? (Mantis)

We have many kind of mantis here and this is a baby of the Giant Mantis which gets to be about 5 inches in body length. The tail end eventually straightens out when it gets its first wings. It is a very common species and feeds mainly off caterpillars.
All mantids have large heads and compound eyes.
The female lays her eggs in cocoons like this which is mainly attached to branches. The cocoon is about 1 inch in length but there are hundreds of eggs in them.

Pilansberg Game Reserve - Part 2

These pretty wild flowers are almost translucent and about 3 inches in diameter.
The insects are busy collecting pollen on the wonderful of varity of buds around.
The giraffe is almost 20 feet in height when fully fron and it always seems as if they are looking down their noses at you.
This was was of my attempts to catch a dragonfly in flight. All the others had not been very successful, but at least on this one I could make out what it was I was trying to take a picture of, the rest were just blurred lines. LOL!!
This cute red one was kind enough to settle down nearby in order for me to take its picture. We have about 160 species of dragon and damselflies in SA.
At lunch time I stopped by the restaurant to get a bit to eat and the warthog was making a meal of the lovely grass in front of it. No digging for wild plants for him, he has cultured tastes.

Rock Hyrax are the favorite food of the eagles and are always on the lookout for them.
One of the Acacia trees gets this pretty flower on it.
A car had just ridden by this point and the people inside did not notice the elephant so well disguised as a rock on the side of the road.
This lioness was watching a herd of Wildebeest across the road. Okay it was lunch time and I suppose her stomach growls too!!