{"id":365936,"date":"2026-10-06T15:44:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365936\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T15:44:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:44:53","slug":"it-could-swallow-the-entire-island-of-manhattan-is-home-to-deadly-snakes-and-even-resembles-a-snake-winding-its-way-through-a-dusty-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365936\/","title":{"rendered":"It could swallow the entire island of Manhattan, is home to deadly snakes \u2013 and even resembles a snake winding its way through a dusty landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2005, a\u00a0group of Namibian schoolchildren<\/a>\u00a0were hiking in Fish River Canyon\u2019s Gondwana Ca\u00f1on Park\u00a0when they came across insects that resembled miniature praying mantises.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t praying mantises, however, but gladiator insects.<\/p>\n

It was only four years earlier that this group of insects, now called\u00a0Mantophasmatodea<\/a>, had been identified, a zoological discovery described \u201cas sensational as finding a live mammoth\u201d.<\/p>\n

For the sake of comparison, it would be like encountering completely new mammals that don\u2019t belong in any of the known orders such as carnivores, primates, rodents or bats.<\/p>\n

These hitherto unimagined animals are just one of many surprises of Fish River Canyon, a\u00a0deep, sinuous gash in the earth<\/a>\u00a0160km long and 27km wide at its greatest extent and plunging down 550 metres at its deepest.<\/p>\n

In satellite photos, it resembles a snake winding its way through a dusty, brown landscape.<\/p>\n

The Fish River Canyon is sometimes described as the world\u2019s second largest after the Grand Canyon (though some sources say this is meaningless), though it definitely has the top dog title in Africa.<\/p>\n

It runs from Seeheim to Ai-Ais where the Fish River joins the Orange River near the Namibia-South Africa border, travelling through an arid, semi-desert landscape that at first glance appears to have little in the way of plant or animal life.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s here \u2013\u00a0as this\u00a0traveller<\/a>\u00a0recalls, the desert blooms after rainfall, with grasses and tiny flowers springing up as if from nowhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the plants are succulents or other highly specialised drought-adapted species, including various members of the ice-plant and daisy families,\u201d the blogger writes.<\/p>\n

Species include the iconic\u00a0quiver tree<\/a>, a species in the\u00a0Aloe\u00a0genus that \u2013\u00a0like all succulents\u00a0\u00a0\u2013\u00a0is specially adapted to a dry, desert environment because it can store water in its stems and leaves.<\/p>\n

Wildlife in the canyon includes a number of equally desert-adapted animals such as brown hyenas, chacma baboons, klipspringer antelopes, kudus and rock hyraxes, as well as rarely-seen leopards, which can adapt to almost any habitat on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an\u00a086km hike<\/a>\u00a0you can do that allows you to explore the bottom of the canyon for 4 or 5 days. It\u2019s one for extremely hardy walkers only, however, because you have to carry everything you\u2019ll need, including food, sleeping bag and roll mat, all the clothes you\u2019ll need and a camping stove and fuel.<\/p>\n

You can only do it in the winter and you have to travel in a group of at least three people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But if you feel up to the challenge, it sounds worth it \u2013 you\u2019ll see the tiny klipspringers bouncing \u201cup the canyon walls in defiance of physics\u201d and chacma baboons which will happily unzip tent flaps and food packs.<\/p>\n

One account of a baboon \u201cstrolling into a bedroom and defecating on a packing list is not unusual.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The river itself is just a series of stagnant pools for much of the year, but these still attract birds such as African fish eagles and goliath herons hunting for a meal. Reptiles include the river leguaan or\u00a0Nile monitor<\/a>, a smaller relative of the Komodo dragon but which can still grow to a length of more than 2m.<\/p>\n

Because of their size, they can \u201clook alarming for the first 30 seconds\u201d, but they are said to be harmless to humans.<\/p>\n

Other lizards such as skinks and agamas are also common, but snakes are rarely seen. There are highly venomous puff adders here, but they mostly stay hidden, though it is worth keeping an eye and ear out for \u2013 they are said to sound like a slow leak if you get too close.<\/p>\n

And then there are the praying mantis-like gladiator insects. You probably won\u2019t see these either, but isn\u2019t it good to know they\u2019re there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2005, a\u00a0group of Namibian schoolchildren\u00a0were hiking in Fish River Canyon\u2019s Gondwana Ca\u00f1on Park\u00a0when they came across insects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-365936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}