Karoo prinia Karoo prinia The Karoo prinia or spotted prinia ("Prinia maculosa") is a small passerine bird. It is a resident breeder in South Africa, Lesotho and far southern Namibia. It is a species of karoo scrub, fynbos and bracken covered slopes in semi-desert and mountains. The former eastern subspecies "P. m. hypoxantha" is now usually considered to be a separate species, the Drakensberg prinia, "P. hypoxantha". The Karoo prinia is 13–15 cm long, with short rounded wings, a longish tail, strong legs and a short straight black bill. The head has a whitish eyebrow and the upperparts are otherwise brown. The
Karoo desert ephemerals, spaced 50 cm or more apart, and becoming very sparse going northwards into Bushmanland and, from there, into the Kalahari Desert. The driest region of the Karoo, however, is its southwestern corner, between the Great Escarpment and the Cederberg-Skurweberg mountain ranges, called the Tankwa Karoo, which receives only 75 mm of rain annually. The eastern and north-eastern Karoo are often covered by large patches of grassland. The typical Karoo vegetation used to support large game, sometimes in vast herds. Today, sheep thrive on the xerophytes, though each sheep requires about 4 ha of grazing to sustain itself. The