The former is better for north African birds, being good at showing the local forms and subspecies, and it served me well.
Įverywhere I went I was equipped with binoculars, digital camera, and a trusty field guide: for reasons I can't recall I opted to go with Mullarney et al (1999) this time, instead of Heinzel et al. I only travelled around in the north-west and west of the country, so didn't get to see any of the areas around the borders with Niger, Chad or Egypt. Libya has great wildlife - hey, just like all the other countries! - and I was thrilled with the success I had. Instead, and as is the Tet Zoo tradition, I want to talk about the wildlife I encountered. We did see fossil material, but I can't talk about it - sorry. Fossil horses, deinotheres, gigantic creodonts, sirenians and many others are known from the country. 2006, Le Loeuff & Métais 2009) - but it's far better known for its spectacular Miocene mammals. 1998, Smith & Dalla Vecchia 2006, Smith et al. Libya has yielded various such fossils - simoliopheid snakes, pholidosaurid crocodyliforms, abelisaurid and baryonychine theropods and spatulate-toothed sauropods among them (e.g., Nessov et al. Huge pictures of Gaddafi are everywhere.Īs you might guess, I was in the country for palaeontological reasons, and specifically for Cretaceous dinosaurs and other reptiles.
While the country runs on paperwork, with everything being stamped in triplicate, signed and counter-signed, there's no strong military presence or anything like that, and we never felt uneasy or uncomfortable. Visitors thus get none of the constant hassling they get in places like Morocco. The landscape isn't all that different from the wilds of Morocco - the only other north African country I've visited - but the towns have a totally different feel, as Libya lacks the long tourist tradition of that country. It's a land of spectacular sweeping landscapes, enormous vistas, rocky hillsides, wadis and deserts. However, 90% of the country is desert, and the population is only about 5.7 million (of which nearly 2 million live in Tripoli, the capital). Libya - officially, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya - is huge: it covers nearly 2 million square kilometres and is the fourth largest African county. The trip was led by Richard Moody, best known for his work on Cretaceous sea turtles I was also accompanied by palaeornithologist Gareth Dyke and by a group of people interested in the country's geology. So, I recently returned from a brief sojourn in Libya.