wildlife found in the velds of South Africa
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Veld (/vɛlt/ or /fɛlt/), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana. A certain sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been officially defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature.[1] Trees are found only in a few places—frost, fire and grazing animals allow grass to grow but prevent the growth of trees.The etymological origin is older modern Dutch veldt, a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of veld during the 19th century,[2] decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary.[3][4] A cognate to the English field, it was spelt velt[5] in Middle Dutch and felt[6] in Old Dutch.The climate of the veld is highly variable, but its general pattern is mild winters from May to September and hot or very hot summers from November to March, with moderate or considerable variations in daily temperatures and abundant sunshine. Precipitation mostly occurs in the summer months in the form of high-energy thunderstorms.
Over most of the South African Highveld, the average annual rainfall is between 500–900 millimetres (20–35 in) a year, decreasing to about 250 millimetres (9.8 in) near the western border and increasing to nearly 1,000 millimetres (39 in) in some parts of the Lesotho Highlands; the South African Lowveld generally receives more precipitation than the Highveld. Temperature is closely related to elevation. In general, the mean July (winter) temperatures range between 7 °C (45 °F) in the Lesotho Highlands and 16 °C (61 °F) in the Lowveld. January (summer) temperatures range between 18 °C (64 °F) and 30 °C (86 °F).