Botswana Habitat Guide

Botswana is a landlocked nation with area that stretches over 582,000 and extends 1100km from the north to the south, and 960kms from the east to the west. The Kalahari covers 85% of the country in the central and south-western parts making parts of Botswana sand filled basins. This country also has the world’s largest oasis in the Okavango delta. Eastern Botswana is dotted with low hills, bare rocks and few perennial rivers. Short shrubs and endless grassland characterise the vegetation of the desert land.

Botswana is home to a phenomenal variety of wildlife. Worth mentioning are the elephant, leopard, rhino, hippo, wild dog, cheetah, giraffe and zebra. The dry lands boast of more than 70 species of snakes! There are three species of spitting cobra alone. The others, such as the tree snake (boomslangs) and vine snake, are a common sight in the Okavango delta – they don’t usually bother human beings unless they feel threatened in some way. Botswana is full of feathered friends, some of them of the brown uninteresting type. Among the colourful and exotic ones are the grey lourie with its melancholy "go away" cry, the lilac-breasted roller, the foppish crowned crane and the great snake-basher, the secretary snake, which hops up and down on its prey like a secretary banging on the typewriter!