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Published: June 24th 2017
Geo: -25.4498, 31.9633
Drove the S28 in hopes of finding the cheetah mother and cubs that have been seen on this road. There was information in Kruger Sightings that gave the number of km from the north or the south entrance of the road. We tried both directions and ran into people that had seen the cheetah that morning....................but had disappeared from sight.
We did have a wonderful sighting as we were leaving the S28. There were impala stotting. Now what is that? Behavior where the impala lifts all four feet off the ground at once and in this case they kicked the back feet higher in the air before they landed. One after another, the females did this, sometimes several of them at once in a line. It was so nice to watch.
Looked up stotting in wikipedia and there were several possible suggestions for why they do this. One conjecture is it is when there is a predator in the area and either to confuse or intimidate the predator. Another was the show the strength of the animal by the way it jumps. Whichever choice you make, it was interesting to watch!
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margie adcock
non-member comment
Did you ever see the Springbok "pronking"? that is extraordinary and a wonderful sight to see. It is different to the 'stotting' you describe. The springbok arches its back, leaps straight up, sometimes as much at 6 - 8 feet, land on all fo
urs and immediately take off again, as tho on a trampoline. At the same time a fan of white hair rises up along the back of the animal, these fold down flat within a fold along the back when not pronking!