Savannah (African steppe) is a vast territory covered by tree-shrubby rare forms and herbaceous vegetation, which belongs to the subequatorial belt. For savannas, a subequatorial climate is considered a characteristic type of climate, which is marked by a pronounced division into dry and rainy seasons.
Description
The African steppe savannah is a typical example of a locality, the image of which appears in the main number of people at the mention of this continent. The territory is dominated by evergreen rain forests and deserts, between which lies a beautiful, unstable and wild savannah - a huge zone overgrown with solitary trees and grass. Scientists have determined the approximate age of this natural phenomenon - about 5 million years. Therefore, it is considered the youngest zonal type of Africa.
Geographical position
The African steppe occupies almost 40% of the mainland. It is located around the equatorial evergreen forests.
The Guinean-Sudanese savannah in the north borders the equatorial forests, stretching for 5, 000 km from the east coast of the Indian Ocean to the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean. From the river Tana savannah extends to the valley of the river. Zambezi, then, turning 2500 km to the west, passes to the coast of the Atlantic.
Weather dependent
The African steppe savannah is directly dependent on the weather, whose whims here are felt very strongly by representatives of the plant and animal world. The dry seasons here are not like the others. Every year, nature must adapt to the changes that come with climate. Inevitably, only one thing - the savannah in each such period loses its vitality, brightness, juices, turning into a sea of sultry gloom and wilted grass. With the advent of the rainy season, landscape changes begin so rapidly that in a couple of days nature becomes completely unrecognizable. If you compare the images of the savannah before the rainy season and after a week of heavy rainfall, finding their similarities will not be easy.
Savannah Plant World
On the black continent, typical savannah plants are all kinds of acacia, oilseeds, baobabs, lanceolate lofirs, doom palms, elephant grass, anisophylls, and various grasses. By the way, the latter have adapted better than others to the conditions of regular changes in humidity and temperature. Indeed, if for a period of drought xerophyte trees can simply throw off foliage and stand in this form in anticipation of a new wet season, then it is much more difficult to survive the herbs. Although nature was able to take care of maintaining the viability of the grass cover of the savannah. In cereal representatives of the flora of Africa, the leaves are hairy, narrow, very stiff and have a wax-resistant coating that preserves moisture in the cells.
Fauna of the savannah
Many are surprised and interested in the African steppe savannah. Animals in its open spaces live in huge numbers. They got here due to migration regularities that are associated with changes in temperature on Earth. At some point, millions of years ago, the mainland was completely covered with rainforests, only the climate gradually became drier, due to which huge parts of the forest disappeared, and in their place were fields that were overgrown with grassy vegetation, and open woodlands. This, in turn, served as the emergence of various new species of animals that searched for good conditions for food.
Thus, the African steppe developed. Giraffes from the jungle were the first to come here, followed by elephants, all kinds of monkeys, antelopes and other herbivores. Following them, according to the law of nature, predators began to inhabit the savannah: servals, lions, jackals, cheetahs and others. And since an incredible number of worms and insects live in the soil and grass of the savannah, the fauna was replenished with all kinds of birds that came to Africa from different parts of the world. In this place from the birds there is an opportunity to see the red-billed quilly, storks, vultures, marabou, African ostriches, horned ravens, vultures, etc. There are also many lizards, crocodiles and snakes.
