I am standing on a dune looking out to sea. It’s 2024, but I’m thinking about a very different time. Hundreds of thousands of years ago this 350km stretch of southern African coast looked very different. It was home to giant zebra, bird species that are now extinct, giant tortoises and crocodiles. Our hominin ancestors roamed the area. We know some of these facts because of body fossils. But South Africa’s Cape south coast is also home to another rich source of information, which our research team from the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University has documented…
Author: Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
Mention the word “fossils” to people and most will probably think of bones. Of course, body fossils make up a large part of the global fossil record. But humans and other species leave their mark in other ways too – for instance, their tracks. The study of these fossil tracks and traces is called ichnology. I am an ichnologist. In 2008 my colleagues and I launched the Cape South Coast Ichnology Project to study a 350km stretch of South Africa’s coastline. We’ve since identified more than 350 vertebrate tracksites, most of them in cemented dunes called aeolianites that date back…
The African rail (Rallus caerulescens) is a handsome bird, with a blueish breast, red legs, eyes and bill, prominent barring on the flanks, chestnut upper parts, and long toes. It also has a characteristic trilling call. This wetland dweller is only found in sub-Saharan Africa, with a concentration in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The species is one of about 140 members worldwide of the Rallidae, the bird family that includes coots, moorhens, gallinules, rails, crakes and flufftails. In southern Africa there are about 15 representatives of the family. African rail. A Oosthuizen / Getty Images In science, a “holotype”…