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The lake was named Lake Rudolf by Count Samuel Teleki and Lieutenant Von Höhnel in 1888, and renamed Lake Turkana in 1975. The area has been preserved by its remoteness and still sees few Western visitors, being a 3 day drive from Nairobi. Local people are predominantly of the Gabbra , Rendille and Turkana tribes.
Lake Turkana, sometimes referred to as the Jade Sea, contains Nile perch and tilapia, as well as Africa's largest population of Nile crocodiles - 14,000 breed on Central Island. The presence of water in such an arid area makes the region internationally important as a staging post for migrating birds. Lions, cheetah and giraffe as well as many other species of mammal live in the area. ElephantThis page is about the animal, see elephant (disambiguation) for more meanings. Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Proboscidea is an order including only one family, Elephantidae or the elephants with 3 species: the Sas and rhinoCeratotherium simum Dicerorhinus sumatrensis Diceros bicornis Rhinoceros unicornis ''R. sondaicus A rhinoceros is any of five surviving species of odd-toed ungulate in the family Rhinocerotidae . All five are native to Africa or Asia. Rhinoceros is also o are no longer seen, although Teleki reported seeing (and indeed shooting) many. Lake Turkana is now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a specific site (such as a forest, mountain range, lake, desert, building, complex, or city) that has been nominated for the international World Heritage program administered by UNESCO. The program aims to catalogue, name,.
Richard LeakeyRichard Erskine Frere Leakey (born December 19, 1944), son of Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, is a renowned Kenyan paleontologist and conservationist. Paleontology Richard Leakey started his career following in the footsteps of his famous parents with disco has led numerous anthropologicalHuman evolution as a scientific field has a long and sometimes controversial history, however, since the mid- 1990s, there has been a remarkable convergence of views about how humans have evolved. This convergence includes paleoanthropologists, geneticist digs in the area which have led to many important discoveries of hominidSubfamily Ponginae Pongo Orangutans Subfamily Homininae Gorilla Gorillas Pan Chimpanzees Homo Humans Paranthropus † Australopithecus † Sahelanthropus † Ardipithecus † Kenyanthropus † The Hominids Hominidae are a biologic remains. The 2 million year old Skull 1470Skull 1470 is the skull of an early hominid. It was found by Richard Leakey in the eastern Turkana basin in the 1970s. It was dated as around 3 million years old. It is in the center of the bipedalism vs. big brain" controversy among anthropologists. was found in 1972. It was originally thought to be Homo habilisHomo habilis ("handy man") is a species of the genus Homo which lived from approximately 2. 5 million to 2. 0 million years ago. The definition of this species goes back to Louis Leakey who found fossils in Tanzania, East Africa, in 1964. Homo habilis is but some anthropologists have assigned it to a new species, Homo rudolfensis, named after the lake. In 1984, the Turkana Boy, a nearly complete skeleton of a nine-year old Homo erectus boy was discovered.