Hello, everybody! Today, I talk about the home of humanity - so let's begin!
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| Once again, my source is Wikipedia. I do try to make sure that what I take from it is true! |
Overview
Africa is part of the Old World and the middle-sized of the three continents that make it up. Straddling the equator and containing 54 countries, Africa was, 200,000 years ago, the setting for the arrival of our species onto this rock in space. It has a rich human history, spanning all of the time we have been around.
Africa, being the only continent to stretch from northern temperate to southern temperate climate zones, also contains a huge amount of climates - in the north, there is the Sahara Desert; in central Africa, there are thick rainforests; and in the south, there's a mixture ranging from semi-arid to temperate climates.
Africa, being the only continent to stretch from northern temperate to southern temperate climate zones, also contains a huge amount of climates - in the north, there is the Sahara Desert; in central Africa, there are thick rainforests; and in the south, there's a mixture ranging from semi-arid to temperate climates.
Geography
Taken as a whole, Africa is roughly 600 metres above sea level. Oddly enough, however, there isn't much land higher or lower than that. Almost all of its land above 3,000 metres is just represented by individual mountains (or sometimes mountain ranges.) The continent's highest mountain is Kilimanjaro, standing at 5,895 metres above sea level!
Animal life
There are MASSIVE amounts of biodiversity in Africa - let's begin with the insects. Take the termites, for instance. The number of termite species in Africa is over a thousand! Or there's also 1,200 species of bees… or two thousand species of ants! (Wow. That's a lot of biodiversity!)
But there's also about 3,000 species of fish - or more than 2,600 species of birds, or more than 1,100 species of mammals (Africa being where we evolved, humans count in that number too!)
Yesterday, as a family, we took a trip up to Roehampton to visit our great aunt. Aunty Mary is Mother Superior at her convent, where we had a lovely dinner - I had sausages and chips! We also had a nice chat to catch up on recent happenings, which was lovely. Linking in with today's post, Aunty Mary has been to Kenya several times, and is going there again soon! She showed us a video of one of the 'roads' she travelled on, which was a very muddy dirt track. We also met some of the nuns who work alongside Aunty Mary, and they were very funny!
We're hoping to go back up to see Aunty Mary sometime during the summer holidays - so I'm really looking forward to that!
…Also, I know this post is ten minutes late. (Oops!) Anyways, I shall see you all next week on the blog!