ABSTRACT 

Members of the mammalian orders Afrosoricida, Macroscelididae, Rodentia and Soricomorpha are well known for playing a major role in ecosystem functioning. Any contributions, such as those by Barn Owls and archaeological samples, made to improving understanding of this role must therefore be worth considering. Here, attention is restricted to the taxonomic history and distributional records of the 48 genera and 134 species of micromammals (under about 250 g) within these orders that occur in southern Africa. Regrettably, the sources are not without problems, including uncertainties of identification due to the nature of the material and changes in taxonomy through time. To help address this issue, name changes over time are here collated and cross-referenced so that non-taxonomists may associate material identified at different times in the past with the current nomenclature. Type localities of past and present taxa, Barn Owl roosts and archaeological sites dated to the last 2000 years are mapped. As a further aid to workers in other fields, a gazetteer of collection sites, cross-referenced to degree squares, and micromammalian contents of the sites are also provided. A comprehensive list of references provides information on the original and other most relevant publications.

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ABSTRACT

Blankets have been an important part of the cultural and national identity of the Basotho for over 160 years. They are an integral part of the Basotho culture as reflected in the sayings “bochaba ba Mosotho ke kobo” (the nationality of a Mosotho is the blanket) and “kobo ke bophelo” (the blanket is life). The Basotho have successfully adopted this foreign item and incorporated it into their way of life. They assigned important meanings to the blankets, which represent different milestones and stages of life. In recent years the blankets have also become widely known outside the Sotho culture, because of their appearance on the fashion scene, both locally (Lesotho and South Africa) and globally, as well as in the film Black Panther. The National Museum in Bloemfontein, South Africa, houses an impressive collection of Basotho blankets. The first blankets were acquired in 1991 as part of expanding the Basotho material culture in the National Museum’s Anthropology Collection. More blankets, 40 in total, were later given to the museum on loan for 25 years by the Robertson family. The Robertson collection includes a variety of blankets such as the Batho ba Roma that was made to commemorate Pope John Paul’s visit to Lesotho in 1988, Badges of the Brave that was made to honour those who fought in World War II, and the Seanamarena blanket. This paper explores the blanket tradition within the Basotho culture, highlighting how it endures as a symbol of identity and cultural pride.

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ABSTRACT
During 2023, South Africa marked 120 years of organised tennis on a national basis. Over this period, a number of players of both sexes achieved international fame on a number of iconic courts in a range of competitions. In the recent past, the national honours list which for more than a century only reflected the achievements of people of white and European descent, witnessed the addition of the names of a number of black achievers. This notwithstanding, the real origins of the South African lawn tennis tradition remain largely unknown and the cause of speculation. This article, using a range of contemporary historical newspaper archives, provides a new reconstruction of the origins and development of tennis within both the white and black communities in the period before the Second Anglo-Boer War (South African War).
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ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the Kenyan species of Euplectromorpha Girault and Euplectrus Westwood. Euplectromorpha emeljanovi Yefremova was collected from the Kenyan Highlands (Nairobi) and from an isolated patch of indigenous forest next to Lake Victoria in western Kenya. Formerly known only from Ethiopia these two collections represent the southern, most records of the species. Its collection is also the southernmost of the genus from continental Africa. Fourteen species of Euplectrus are recorded from Kenya: 11 species described by Ferrière (E. aburiensis, E. cinctiventris, E. epiplemae, E. fuscipes, E. laphygmae, E. liparidis E. nigrescens, E. nigroclypeatus, E. rufiventris, E. singularis, E turneri), E. scapus Yefremova, and two described herein as new Euplectrus icipeensis sp. n. and E. subsphaericus sp. n.). We also redescribe the females of E. nigroclypeatus and E. turneri, and the males of E. aburiensis and E. singularis. An identification key is provided for the 14 species of the genus Euplectrus found in Kenya.

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ABSTRACT 

We report on the sympatric occurrence of three colour pattern morphs of the Common Egg-eater Dasypeltis scabra at a single locality in the northern Free State Province, central South Africa: typically patterned morph (grey-brown with dark brown vertebral saddles and lateral bars), ‘plain’ morph (brown with a dark vertebral stripe) and intermediate morph (brown, weakly and partially patterned with darker markings). In South Africa, patterned and ‘plain’ morphs are known to occur sympatrically in Highveld grassland areas in the central and northern Free State, as well as southern Gauteng Province. The intermediate morph reported on here has not been recorded previously.

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