Skeleton Coast

Name: Skeleton Coast
Address: Namibia

Namibia · region

Skeleton Coast, Namibia — Photo: GIRAUD Patrick, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

Boundary from OpenStreetMap. The counts below cover the park and roughly 16 km around it.

10 km zone · medium confidence · updated 41 days ago

Recorded in and around Skeleton Coast

Species: 292
Grid cells: 798
Records: 12,911

Insects 90
Birds 87
Reptiles 52
Bony fish 38
Mammals 14
Sharks and rays 6
Amphibians 5

Species with at least one recorded territory whose grid cell centres fall in or near Skeleton Coast. Cells are up to 25 km across, so an animal counted here may have been recorded just outside the boundary. This is not a park checklist, and the counts follow where people look as much as what lives there.

Likely encounters

mammalEN

African Elephant

Loxodonta africana

Desert-adapted herds that survive on remembered water in some of the driest country in Africa.

LikelyNA

mammalLC

Springbok

Antidorcas marsupialis

Small, watchful, and given to sudden pronking displays.

LikelyNA

mammalLC

Gemsbok

Oryx gazella

Emblem of the desert, capable of surviving without free water.

UncommonNA

birdLC

Greater Flamingo

Phoenicopterus roseus

Pink drifts across Walvis Bay's lagoons after the rains.

UncommonNA

birdLC

Sociable Weaver

Philetairus socius

Builders of the largest bird nests on Earth: apartment blocks in acacia.

RareNA

Chances by species: African Elephant, Springbok, Gemsbok, Greater Flamingo, Sociable Weaver

Most recorded here

The species with the most open occurrence records in and around Skeleton Coast, among those a photograph exists for. Most recorded is not most numerous: it rewards animals that are common, conspicuous and live where people go.