Nature
Where does Meerkat come from?
Meerkats live in the dry, open country of the Kalahari and Karoo in southern Africa. Some members of each group always stand sentry, and adults teach pups to eat scorpions by first removing the stinger.
More Animals & plants
Nature
Domestic goat
📍 Fertile Crescent (Zagros & Taurus mountains)
Goats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the hills of the Fertile Crescent. The oldest known herded goats come from Ganj Dareh in Iran's Zagros Mountains, where their wild ancestor, the bezoar ibex, still lives.
Nature
Chrysanthemum (garden mum)
📍 China
Garden chrysanthemums were bred in China for many centuries before they reached Japan. There the flower became the emperor's emblem, which is why the Japanese monarchy is called the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Nature
Pearl millet
📍 Western Sahel (northern Mali)
Pearl millet was first farmed on the southern edge of the Sahara, around today's northern Mali, more than 4,000 years ago. It later spread to India, which now grows more of it than any other country.
More from Africa
Invention
Dolos (breakwater block)
📍 East London, South Africa
These giant concrete 'jacks' that lock together to tame waves were designed in 1963 for the harbour of East London, South Africa. Their Afrikaans name refers to knucklebones, and they now guard coasts around the world.
Food
Bunny chow
📍 Durban, South Africa
There's no bunny in a bunny chow: it's a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with curry. It was created in the 1940s by the Indian community of Durban, where locals still order a 'quarter mutton'.
Word
Aardvark (the word)
📍 Cape region, South Africa
It looks Dutch, but aardvark ('earth pig', for its burrowing) was coined in South Africa in Afrikaans, the language that grew from the Dutch of Cape settlers. English borrowed it in 1833, and aardvarks live only in Africa.