Namib Desert

Back-to-back with the Atlantic Ocean, the 50,000 sq km African Namib Desert makes up a large part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia and covers a corner of southwest Angola.

The Namib Desert is believed to have been a desert for more than 80 million years. Its prehistoric dune sea has rolling, red waves of sand up to 350 m high, shifted by hot winds right up to the ocean where the water's edge evaporates into thick fog, giving the 'Skeleton Coast' its notoriety for causing shipwrecks.

The resulting moisture also allows the Namib Desert to support distinctive plant and animal species which have evolved in the face of incredibly harsh conditions, such as the fantastically-shaped Welwitschia plant and the head-standing beetle, which climbs to the peak of a dune in the fog and stands upside down, catching the water droplets on its belly and drinking them as they trickle to its mouth.