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 Desert may be in part the residues of ancient lakes; the Kalahari Desert was once a much wetter place. The ancient Lake Makgadikgadi dominated the area, covering the Makgadikgadi Pan and surrounding areas, but it drained or dried out some 10,000 years ago. It may have once covered as much as . The Kalahari has had a complex climatic history over the past million or so years, in line with major global changes. Changes in the last 250,000 years have been reconstructed from various data sources, and provide evidence of both former extensive lakes and periods drier than now. During the