The mystery revealed

Dassie on the rocks on the Wild Coast

The mystery revealed: Those animals are the Rock Hyrax (Procavia capensis), commonly known as dassies. Bragging rights go to Mike Robbins (Andrew’s dad) who figured it out.

So why would I be so deeply dorky as to have an animal identification quiz on the blog? Two reasons:

1. For weeks and weeks we saw them everywhere and didn’t know what they were. Originally, I was going to post it to see if any of you could figure out what they were when I couldn’t.

2. A few days ago, I learned they are the closest living relative to the ….wait for it….Elephant. I found this charming. (dassies are small, you could carry one in each arm if they were not too feisty.)

So, would you like to know how elephants and dassies are related?… (really, how nerdy are you?, if the answer is not very nerdy, maybe skip this part)

1. Elephants and Dassies have similar foot structures- they both have clawed toes: 4 on the front, 3 on the back

2. Dassies have two small tusks in their upper jaw

3.Neither have canines, but both have molars

4. Neither have testes that descend into their scrotum (does make one wonder what the point of a scrotum is then, but that is a different issue)

5. Both have two lobed livers and neither have gall bladders

6. Both have long gestation periods.

I am not sure how this proves that they are related, but apparently they are. Go figure