Today, the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve across the border in Kenya, protect the greatest and most varied collection of terrestrial wildlife on earth, and one of the last great migratory systems still intact. The Serengeti is the jewel in the crown of Tanzania's protected areas, which altogether make up some 14% of the country's land area, a conservation record that few other countries match.

What are the Big Five and Why

You may have heard of the Big Five before going on safari, from an old book, or from a nature documentary. Today, there are five animals which people most want to see while on safari. One hundred years ago, with pith helmets, mosquito boots, and 'darkest Africa', the Big Five were the most sought after animals to hunt. They were the fiercest, the most dangerous animals - the animals that would hunt the hunter.

Explorers of East Africa went home with stories of lions and leopards in the tall African grass, of rhinos that would charge at the mere smell of a human, of the Cape Buffalo hidden in the bushes, and of the terrors of an enraged elephant.

Today, of course, the hunting is done with camera lenses, but that doesn't take away from the thrill of seeing your first lion or hearing a leopard walk past your camp at night. These big mammals are each far more interesting than the early explorers knew.

The Little Five

Birds and Reptiles

Swooping low over the long grass plains, a black-crested Snake Eagle flares and then drops like a stone, talons extended. Seconds later it vaults into the air, carrying a long brown grass snake. It climbs slowly and passes only a few meters over our safari vehicle, wriggling snake and all, causing all of us to duck by reflex. We have just seen two of the Serengeti's often overlooked but charismatic groups; the "Flyers and the Crawlers". Birds are one of the most diverse life forms on earth. They fill a wide variety of ecological roles. They are herbivores, insectivores, predators and scavengers. They range from the tiny "Beautiful Sunbird" that sometimes comes to investigate a particularly bright Hawaiian shirt, to the enormous ostrich with its red legs and dramatic mating dance, and everything in between. The Serengeti hosts more than 540 bird species of residents and migrants, some of which you may recognize such as the dramatic "Secretary bird", the austere "African Fish Eagle", the "Fisher's Lovebird" or the countless vultures.

The Serengeti contains a huge variety and number of animals that creep, crawl, and slither. Most of these lizards, skinks and snakes feed on the abundant insects and rodents in the grass, while others specialize on birds’ eggs and pythons can consume animals as large as gazelles. Some crawlers are herbivores themselves such as the leopard or hinge-backed tortoises. Not all crawlers are small, however; the giant catfish of the Mara and Grumeti Rivers will pull themselves through the mud from pool to pool and can weight up to 30 pounds, while the very active monitor lizard lives in reeds and bushes and grows to a meter and a half long. The king of the crawlers, at over 1000 pounds and sometimes in excess of 5 meters long, is the massive fresh water crocodiles of Serengeti, who will happily eat a whole wildebeest for dinner and can live for a over a hundred years (making the worst possible houseguest imaginable).
 
Insects

The first thing that many visitors to the Serengeti notice is the apparently low numbers of insects. Many have heard stories and are nervous of biting or creepy-crawly things in Africa. In fact, while the numbers of biting and stinging insects is much lower than North America or Europe, the diversity and number of insects is phenomenally higher. The Serengeti may not be filled with mosquitoes and black-flies, but the numbers of plant eaters, eaters of the plant eaters, and eaters of the eaters of the plant eaters are amazing. Five of the more common insect groups and ones that are critical for the ecology of the park are dung beetles, grasshoppers, termites, butterflies and ants. We hope you enjoy the world of the "creepy crawlies".