Hyraxes | Hyracoidea

Klipdassen | Hiracoideos

Stocky, short-tailed herbivores the size of a rabbit, with short legs and a sole that looks and feels like rubber: glands keep it moist and muscles pull the middle of the pad upwards, so that the foot grips smooth rock like a suction cup. The toes carry flat hoof-like nails, except for a single curved claw on the inner hind toe used for grooming. In the upper jaw two incisors grow continuously into short tusks. Leaves, grass and twigs are broken down by bacteria in a stomach with more than one compartment and in two capacious caeca; they do not chew the cud. Body temperature is poorly regulated, so the morning is spent basking and the night huddled together. Their nearest relatives, despite the size, are the elephants and the sea cows.

Families in this order

Hyraxes | Procaviidae1 speciesRock dwellers through and through. The moist, rubbery soles and the ability to draw in the middle of the pad give a grip on steep smooth stone, and the animals climb trees with it too. They live in colonies among clefts and boulder heaps, with fixed basking places where the whole group warms up in the morning and where one animal keeps watch and gives a sharp barking call at any approaching danger. They use communal latrines: sites under overhanging rock, used for centuries, leave thick hard deposits in which the plant history of a district is preserved. In the middle of the back lies a gland field enclosed by a ruff of erectile, differently coloured hair that shows when the animal is roused. Gestation is very long for so small a beast — well over half a year — and the young are furred, seeing and mobile at birth. Within the area of this guide they reach only the south-eastern edge.