Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

There is one astonishing African animal that kills more humans than any other. What might that animal be, you might ask, if you hadn’t noticed the heading of this article. Is it the king of the beasts, the lion? Or possibly the lithe and solitary leopard? Or do the elephants and rhinos use their respective [...]

Of all the astonishing animals that Africa has to offer, the wildebeest is perhaps the strangest. Or perhaps not. To clarify the matter would require some kind of definitive scientific measure of ‘strangeness’, a task that seems to be off the radar of most of our leading scientists and sporting stars. However, if some kind [...]

Cost: $AU 49.95, available in all good book stores This glorious coffee table book offers beautiful pictures and uncommon information about 22 of Africa’s most astonishing animals. From the lion (‘invariably three-dimensional’) to the wildebeest (‘invented by Oscar Wilde’) and a score of others, Astonishing African Animals takes you on a journey through Africa that [...]

Leopards… as far as big cats go, they’re certainly one of them. More spotted than lions, less stripey than tigers, fewer gills than trout, leopards occupy a unique niche in the African wildscape. And by ‘unique niche’ I refer, of course, to ‘trees’. Leopards are almost always found perched among the branches of trees, which [...]

Rhinos… of all the animals Elmer Fudd would pronounce as ‘wino’, the rhino is the one that most resembles a tank. And, just like a drunkard behind the wheel of a Panzerkampfwagen, the rhino is not a creature easily ignored. Rhinos are immense mammals (a ‘mammal’ is an animal that suckles its young: Kate Hudson [...]

Giraffes… tallest of all animals, yet notoriously poor basketball players. Horn-headed, yet anointed by Pope Benedict The Giraffe-Lover as the ‘least Hellbound’ of all God’s creatures. Fans of U2, yet dismissive of The Joshua Tree album. Is there any animal more paradoxical than the giraffe (Venezualan Paradox Beetle notwithstanding)? The male giraffe has an average [...]

Elephants… of all the animals that evolved from the common starfish, the elephant is by far the largest. This assumes, of course, that one excludes giant starfish conquerors from outer space, which has been standard size-comparison procedure in the scientific community since the 1960s. There are two kinds of elephants – the African and the [...]

Lions… Rightly known as the king of beasts, for just as rock and roll was dominated by Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, so too do lions dominate their peers. However, they do so in a substantially different way. Elvis, for example, never made a habit of slaughtering and consuming his contemporaries, although [...]