West Africa

West Africa is forest edge, river, mangrove, Sahel, and remnant savanna stitched together by animals that are often rarer than their names suggest. A western chimpanzee reaching through leaves, a manatee moving through brown water, or a lion holding on in fragmented dry country can each tell the region from a different angle.

This chapter is about survival in pressured landscapes. Upper Guinea forests, gallery corridors, coastal wetlands, and dry northern margins hold species that connect Africa's rainforest and savanna stories without belonging neatly to either one.