Africa has many special features. Among them is the exceptionally high plateau stretching across the southern half of the continent and rising 1,000 metres and more above the surrounding Atlantic and Indian Oceans (see map below). A large part of this plateau forms the great Kalahari Basin, renowned for being the biggest continuous area of sand on planet Earth. Another special feature is the Great Escarpment, which encircles this plateau. In the west the Great Escarpment stretches south from Gabon through Angola, Namibia, into South Africa and then east and north all the way to Ethiopia. In many areas the Great Escarpment and its peaks rise to 2,000 metres or more. Most rivers either flow rapidly down to the surrounding coast or lazily into the broad plain encompassed by the Great Escarpment. Biologists have long focussed their attention on species found only on these highlands. Studies in the Ethiopian highlands, Tanzanian Eastern Arc Mountains, Zimbabwe Eastern Highlands, South African Drakensberg and Cape Fold Mountains have made these areas famous for their endemics, the term for organisms found only in certain restricted areas. However, relatively little information was available about endemism on the highlands of Angola and Namibia. The Namibian Journal of Environment (https://nje.org.na) recently published a review written by 64 people from around the world, most of them specialists in their fields of study on particular groups, for example euphorbias, petalidiums (petal-bushes), reptiles and butterflies. The review consists of 26 articles and runs to 338 pages. Individual articles or the whole book can be downloaded for free (see QR code and link at the bottom of this article).