Gobabeb

Gobabeb If you are interested in visiting us, please send an email to [email protected]. Gobabeb is a research institute in the Namib Desert in Namibia.

It is located on the northern bank of the Kuiseb River, an ephemeral river that runs through the Namib-Naukluft Park, between the Namib Sand Sea to the south and the gravel plains to the north. It lies 85 km SE of Walvis Bay and 232 km SW of Windhoek, as the crow flies. Great Southern Bioblitz Registration:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2023-zambezi-region

The Namib may look quiet, but look a little closer and you will find life everywhere.
21/08/2026

The Namib may look quiet, but look a little closer and you will find life everywhere.

The desert never stops surprising us! We came across these interesting little creatures around Gobabeb, and now we want ...
20/08/2026

The desert never stops surprising us! We came across these interesting little creatures around Gobabeb, and now we want to hear from you… Can you identify them? Tell us what you know in the comments! 👇

Ready for the task! At Gobabeb, we are very flexible with how we get around. Some of the more inaccessible areas can onl...
19/08/2026

Ready for the task! At Gobabeb, we are very flexible with how we get around. Some of the more inaccessible areas can only be reached by quad bike, making them an important part of our weekly and monthly field tasks. Whether it’s reaching remote spots or getting our regular work done, our quad bikes help us get where others can’t! 🏍️

Tiny creatures, incredible desert survivors! Meet some of the fascinating darkling beetles of the Namib Desert.
18/08/2026

Tiny creatures, incredible desert survivors! Meet some of the fascinating darkling beetles of the Namib Desert.

14/08/2026

An unexpected star on a Night Walk
Last night, we set out on a Night Walk to look for scorpions, spiders, and geckos. Interestingly, we found a gerbil busy digging a new burrow.
It would emerge, dig a little, and disappear underground again. As shown in the video, just when we thought we had lost sight of it, it popped out again. As if it knew we were watching, it seemed to show our visitors exactly what it had been doing underground by puddling sand outside the entrance, before disappearing into a nearby !nara hummock.
It was certainly entertaining to watch, and our visitors thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected encounter.

For the past three days, we have experienced strong winds, leaving piles of sand across floors, windows, and just about ...
13/08/2026

For the past three days, we have experienced strong winds, leaving piles of sand across floors, windows, and just about every surface around the station.
Then, this morning, we woke up to a cool, calm, and foggy morning.
We’ll take this beautiful morning as an apology. At least we don’t have to clean up all that dust in the heat 🙂

A rare sighting at Gobabeb!!!We spotted an unexpected visitor: a White-breasted Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo ssp. luci...
12/08/2026

A rare sighting at Gobabeb!!!
We spotted an unexpected visitor: a White-breasted Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo ssp. lucidus).
There is nothing particularly strange about seeing a cormorant until you realize that this one was spotted over 80 km from the Atlantic Ocean, right here in the middle of the Namib Desert.
While White-breasted Cormorants are not exclusively coastal birds, as they can also occur inland and use freshwater habitats such as rivers, dams, and streams, seeing one here, where there are no permanent water sources, still makes you stop and look twice.

Recently, Gobabeb researcher Natanael Ndilenga photographed a small beetle on the Gobabeb campus and uploaded the observ...
11/08/2026

Recently, Gobabeb researcher Natanael Ndilenga photographed a small beetle on the Gobabeb campus and uploaded the observation to iNaturalist, see observation here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/381692877
The beetle was identified by beetle specialist Riaan Stals (), changing the context of the observation considerably.
The beetle was identified as Stator limbatus, a seed beetle native to Central and North America.
Riaan pointed out that S. limbatus was first recorded in sub-Saharan Africa in the Western Cape, South Africa, approximately 15 years ago. At the time, it was considered a New World seed beetle that had arrived in South Africa, and there has been little published information on its subsequent spread through southern Africa.
The Gobabeb observation is therefore interesting from a biogeographical perspective. Currently, this appears to be the first observation of S. limbatus on iNaturalist from Namibia, and anywhere in Africa.
Observations like this highlight the value of iNaturalist as a biodiversity-recording tool. A simple photograph, uploaded from the Namib Desert, connected a local observation with an international community of specialists and brought a potentially important distribution record to light.
Our thanks to Riaan for identifying the beetle and, importantly, for providing the historical context that revealed the significance of this observation.
Now we are curious: where else in Africa have you observed Stator limbatus?

After visiting Gobabeb with the Dartmouth College Foreign Study Program last year, Manu Gupta has returned to collect da...
10/08/2026

After visiting Gobabeb with the Dartmouth College Foreign Study Program last year, Manu Gupta has returned to collect data for his Bachelor’s thesis. Bringing along Paul Metzler, the lab manager of the Chaudhary Soil Ecology Lab at Dartmouth College, they are here studying the microbial communities in the fog of the Namib Desert. They are collecting fog water using the Gobabeb (Mesonet) meteorological network as well as active fog collectors which they’ve built and brought to separate fog from air and dust. They also plan to take soil samples to compare soil microbial communities with those in the fog to work towards understanding fog-mediated microbial dispersal

We are currently experiencing intermittent internet connectivity, especially at night, due to weak batteries at one of T...
07/08/2026

We are currently experiencing intermittent internet connectivity, especially at night, due to weak batteries at one of Telecom's repeater sites. Telecom is in the process of procuring replacement batteries and their technical team continues to work towards restoring our connection. Consequently, our landline is also temporarily unavailable.
In the meantime, please contact us on:
📱 +264 81 812 5745
Thank you for your understanding

Address

P. O. Box 953
Walvis Bay

Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 17:00
Thursday 08:00 - 17:00
Friday 08:00 - 17:00

Telephone

+26464205555

Website

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