Rock Dasssie, Procavia capensis. It hangs out on rocks, dens in convenient mini-caves, mainly eats grass, and has habitual “toilet areas” … which can develop quite a smell, and in time, can serve as a paleoclimate indicator. You are looking at a photograph of one day’s food supply for the nearest pair of Black Eagles. It is only a matter of time.The hyraxes (order Hyracoidea) look like large rodents but are more (but still distantly) related to elephants and seacows, which all together form the group “paenungulates”. There was a time, in the Miocene, when hyraxes were probably the msot abundant medium-sized mammalian grazers and browsers in Africa, ultimately replaced by the antelopes. (Most foliage is eaten by insects today, and probably was then, but we tend to ignore them because they are not cute and furry.)
I took this photograph in Augrabies Falls National Park, South Africa.
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