Fauna of South Africa the world’s seventeen megadiverse countries. In the extreme northwest of the country is true desert, which is the southernmost end of the Namib desert, a desert that is at least 55 million years old, making it the oldest desert in the world. This arid corner intergrades into the extensive semi-arid Karoo found across much of South Africa, covering the Northern Cape and into parts of the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and the Free State. This biome used to be extensive grassland in the past, but has become dominated by small shrubs and succulents due to centuries of overgrazing. To the
Karoo killed a hippopotamus in the Great Fish River in the Karoo (and ate its foot for breakfast). He also recorded that he saw the spoor of a rhinoceros near Cranemere, in the Camdeboo Plains (eastern Lower Karoo). Elephant tusks have been found by farmers in the Camdeboo district, but no records exist of any having been seen alive in that region. The quagga roamed the Karoo in great numbers together with wildebeest and ostriches, which always seemed to accompany them. These quagga seemed gentle and easy to domesticate. (A pair of quagga was used to draw a horse carriage through