Kalahari Desert bird ("Sagittarius serpentarius"), martial eagle ("Polemaetus bellicosus") and other eagles, the giant eagle owl ("Bubo lacteus") and other owls, falcons, goshawks, kestrels, and kites. Other animals include wildebeest, springbok and other antelopes, porcupines ("Hystrix africaeaustralis") and ostriches ("Struthio camelus"). Some of the areas within the Kalahari are seasonal wetlands, such as the Makgadikgadi Pans of Botswana. This area, for example, supports numerous halophilic species, and in the rainy season, tens of thousands of flamingos visit these pans. The biggest threat to wildlife are the fences erected to manage herds of grazing cattle, a practice which also removes the plant cover
Kalahari Craton Archaean-Palaeoproterozoic core of the craton is called the Proto-Kalahari Craton. This core plus accreted Mesoproterozoic crust and dispersed non-African fragments compose the Kalahari Craton. Before the Pan-African Orogeny, the Kalahari Craton was much larger than it is today, but its sutures and therefore its extent are difficult to locate due to later overprinting. The Kaapvaal Craton, Zimbabwe Craton, and Limpopo Belt are made of Archaean terranes and contain crust at least 3.2 and are underlain by a thick () layer of buoyant mantle that is producing garnets and diamonds. During the Palaeoproterozoic the northwest margin of the Archaean core grew