Namibia - Etosha Pan

The 4730 km2 Etosha Pan is a huge, pristine oval-shaped salt pan situated in northern Namibia. It is the central feature of Namibia’s Etosha National Park. It is the terminal playa of the Cuvelai drainage system in the lowest part of the Ovambo Basin at an elevation between 1,071 to 1,086 m above sea level. Smaller pans such as the connecting Fisher’s Pan in the east and adjacent Natukanaoka, Okahakana and Adamax Pans to the west, surround the main pan. The pan is most of the time a dry, saline desert. The vast expanse of hard, salt-encrusted, vegetationless pan floor resulted in its name “bare place” in the Ndonga language. The high temperatures during the day and moisture-sapping salt surface result in an unsuitable habitat for most animals except ‘extremophiles. During the hot dry season of the austral spring and early summer, numerous dust devils with high winds may form and move over the pan, sucking up small debris or blasting larger objects with salty sand. The only large animal to regularly inhabit the pan floor itself is ostriches that nest several kilometres into the pan where few predators will follow. In contrast, many species of large game are found around its edges as they rest on the bare pan floor. Water is found only in numerous spring-fed waterholes on the pan margin.