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Sibiloi National Park
Sibiloi National Park is located in northern Kenya near Lake Turkana. Though extremely windblown and arid, Sibiloi National Park has a surprising variety of wildlife including Grevy's zebra, ostrich, gerenuk, oryx and a unique sub-race of topi called the Tiang. Sibiloi National Park's boundaries extend a kilometer into Lake Turkana, encompassing many of Turkana's huge population of Nile crocodile. Lake Turkana's crocodile population, which numbers around 12,000 is the largest single surviving community. Within Sibiloi National Park is a petrified forest, surviving to tell the tale that 7 million years ago this area was lush and densely forested. A little further north is Koobi Fora, a sand spit and the headquarters, since 1969, of a small fossil-hunting group started by Dr. Richard Leakey. There is a small museum here dedicated to the finds of this team and especially to Bernard Ngeneo whose discovery of a fragment of a fossilized skull led to '1470' (its laboratory catalogue number) being labeled as belonging to the genus Homo a member of mankind's direct ancestors who lived and died close to the Turkana's lake shore about two million years ago. Koobi Fora is, of course, more easily reached by light aircraft, which can land at a nearby strip.
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