We toured the Sterkfontein Caves where important australopithecine fossils were found.
They swung through the trees above and fell through holes like this and died.
There are still active excavations going on, but we weren’t allowed to visit those parts.
Which meant it was a tour of a fairly typical cave.
Dark and wet.
And difficult to get around.
There are also some open excavations at the surface.
![image_thumb[1]](https://www.kerrimatt.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/image_thumb1-2.png "image_thumb[1]")
Here’s Homo naledi. H. naledi is the newly discovered hominid from South Africa.
The reason we have such a huge collection so soon after discovery is that they found the bones at the back of a very hard to access cave system. This may be the earliest form of burial behaviour because the shape of the cave makes it unlikely that it was used for living. Most bones are quite damaged due to crushing from the sheer number clustered together.
We were lucky to catch it on it’s first public showing on its last day before heading off to another location.
Their former prize fossil, a young Australopithecus sediba, had been hastily shoved into a corner to make space for the newcomer.
This is a cast of him standing up.
This is an assembled skull. It’s a little smaller but looks very similar to our skulls, except that it looks like it’s wearing glasses. Not big glasses like Homo erectus though.
When looking at the foot structure the other hominids are smaller and the bones are at different angles suggesting different walking gaits.
We stood in the long line twice to see it because we only had 10 minutes each time to see this remarkable collection.
Here’s Homo naledi. H. naledi is the newly discovered hominid from South Africa.
The reason we have such a huge collection so soon after discovery is that they found the bones at the back of a very hard to access cave system. This may be the earliest form of burial behaviour because the shape of the cave makes it unlikely that it was used for living. Most bones are quite damaged due to crushing from the sheer number clustered together.
We were lucky to catch it on it’s first public showing on its last day before heading off to another location.
Their former prize fossil, a young Australopithecus sediba, had been hastily shoved into a corner to make space for the newcomer.
This is a cast of him standing up.
This is an assembled skull. It’s a little smaller but looks very similar to our skulls, except that it looks like it’s wearing glasses. Not big glasses like Homo erectus though.
When looking at the foot structure the other hominids are smaller and the bones are at different angles suggesting different walking gaits.
We stood in the long line twice to see it because we only had 10 minutes each time to see this remarkable collection.
The jackass penguins live just south of Cape Town.
It looks like a fun place to live.
When they are born they stay warm and safe under Mom’s feet.
They are fluffy and cute.
And cuddly.
And loud when they are hungry. The noise doesn’t sound much like a donkey, but that’s where they got their name.
When they get bigger they are tubby fluffballs.
They still spend a lot of time lying around.
All sprawled out in the sand.
Pretending they can fly.
They are so cute.
So fluffy and cute.
But they are still loud when they were hungry.
Very loud.
When they get older they loose their fluffball feathers and become blue.
The loose feathers itch and they spend a lot of time scratching.
Then they are teenagers.
And slightly less cute.
They moult every year, loosing a ton of feathers every time. Eventually they become black and white adults.
The leftover feathers look funny.
They can’t fish while they are moulting, so they get very hungry.
They can’t swim well and get cold because they are not properly waterproofed.
But they still wade in, presumably to cool off.
They pick most of the loose feathers out with their beaks.
The adults are not at all fluffy.
They march in groups down to the water.
And wade in.
Until it gets too deep to wade.
Then they swim.
When they are not swimming the spend a lot of time standing around looking displeased.
Or staring at things.
There was lots of scenicness on our scenic drive around Cape Town.
There were also some whales waving at us from the ocean.
They were less blurry in person.
