Tanzania Wildlife Guide

The animals, trees and reptiles you can expect to see on safari with us, where each one lives and when to go. Filter by destination to plan your trip.

Mammal

African elephant

Loxodonta africana

Tarangire’s big herds are the classic sight: families drifting between baobabs to the river in the dry season.

Seen in

Tarangire National Park, Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park, Arusha National Park, Rubondo Island National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro

Mammal

Lion

Panthera leo

The Serengeti holds one of the largest lion populations left in Africa. Prides of twenty are not unusual.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park

Mammal

Leopard

Panthera pardus

Secretive and beautiful. The Seronera valley’s sausage trees are the best place in Africa to find one by day.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Tarangire National Park, Ruaha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park

Mammal

Cheetah

Acinonyx jubatus

Built for the short grass plains. Watch one scan from a termite mound in the southern Serengeti.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Tarangire National Park, Ruaha National Park

Mammal

Black rhino

Diceros bicornis

Critically endangered and closely guarded. The Ngorongoro Crater is the most reliable place in Tanzania to see one.

Seen in

Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park

Mammal

Cape buffalo

Syncerus caffer

The Big Five’s heavyweight. Herds of several hundred are a daily sight in Arusha National Park and the crater.

Seen in

Arusha National Park, Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park

Giraffes on the plains with Mount Meru behind, northern Tanzania

Mammal

Masai giraffe

Giraffa tippelskirchi

Tanzania’s national animal, with jagged star-shaped patches. Common almost everywhere except inside the crater.

Seen in

Arusha National Park, Tarangire National Park, Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park, Lake Natron, Lake Eyasi

Zebras on the plains of northern Tanzania

Mammal

Plains zebra

Equus quagga

The migration’s other half. Hundreds of thousands of zebra move with the wildebeest across the Serengeti.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Lake Natron, Lake Eyasi

Wildebeest herds of the Great Migration, Serengeti

Mammal

Blue wildebeest

Connochaetes taurinus

The Great Migration itself: 1.5 million animals circling the Serengeti, calving in the south each February.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park

Mammal

Hippopotamus

Hippopotamus amphibius

Noisy, territorial and surprisingly fast. The Serengeti’s hippo pools hold hundreds in a single bend of river.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park, Lake Victoria, Rubondo Island National Park

Mammal

Spotted hyena

Crocuta crocuta

Clever, social and the crater’s top predator by numbers. Listen for the whooping call after dark.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, Ruaha National Park

Mammal

African wild dog

Lycaon pictus

Africa’s most endangered large carnivore. Ruaha is one of the last strongholds, and sightings there are a privilege.

Seen in

Ruaha National Park, Tarangire National Park

Primate

Chimpanzee

Pan troglodytes

Our closest living relatives, habituated over sixty years of research at Gombe and Mahale.

Seen in

Gombe & Mahale Mountains, Rubondo Island National Park, Lake Tanganyika

Primate

Olive baboon

Papio anubis

Lake Manyara’s troops are some of the biggest in Africa, and the most entertaining hour of any game drive.

Seen in

Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park, Tarangire National Park, Arusha National Park, Gombe & Mahale Mountains, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Eyasi

Primate

Black-and-white colobus

Colobus guereza

Long white capes and a leap that seems to hang in the air. Arusha National Park’s forest is full of them.

Seen in

Arusha National Park, Usambara Mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro, Rubondo Island National Park

Primate

Udzungwa red colobus

Piliocolobus gordonorum

Found nowhere else on earth. One of two endemic monkeys that make the Udzungwa Mountains famous.

Seen in

Udzungwa Mountains & Kilombero Floodplains

Grant’s gazelles on the open plains of Tanzania

Mammal

Impala

Aepyceros melampus

The graceful antelope you will see most often, and the leopard’s favourite meal.

Seen in

Tarangire National Park, Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ruaha National Park, Arusha National Park

Mammal

Greater kudu

Tragelaphus strepsiceros

Spiral horns and a ghostly grey coat. Ruaha is the best park in East Africa for this shy antelope.

Seen in

Ruaha National Park, Tarangire National Park

Reptile

Nile crocodile

Crocodylus niloticus

Ancient, patient and enormous. The Grumeti River’s crocodiles wait all year for the migration to cross.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ruaha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Lake Victoria, Rubondo Island National Park

Baobab country in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania

Tree

Baobab tree

Adansonia digitata

The upside-down tree, some over a thousand years old. Tarangire and Ruaha are the great baobab landscapes of Tanzania.

Seen in

Tarangire National Park, Ruaha National Park, Lake Eyasi

Tree

Umbrella thorn acacia

Vachellia tortilis

The flat-topped tree of every safari photograph. Giraffes browse it and leopards sleep in it.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, Lark Plains, Lake Natron, Lake Eyasi

Mammal

Grant’s gazelle

Nanger granti

The tall, pale gazelle of the open plains, happy a long way from water. Look for the white rump that reaches above the tail.

Seen in

Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, Lark Plains, Lake Manyara National Park, Lake Natron

Primate

Blue monkey

Cercopithecus mitis

The quiet grey-blue monkey of Tanzania’s forests, usually noticed by a shaking branch high in the canopy.

Seen in

Arusha National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Usambara Mountains, Udzungwa Mountains & Kilombero Floodplains, Gombe & Mahale Mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro, Lake Tanganyika

Reptile

Usambara three-horned chameleon

Trioceros deremensis

A giant among chameleons, with three horns like a tiny triceratops. It lives only in the forests of the Eastern Arc Mountains.

Seen in

Usambara Mountains

Primate

Sanje mangabey

Cercocebus sanjei

Discovered by science only in 1979 and found nowhere outside the Udzungwa Mountains. A habituated group can be tracked near Sanje.

Seen in

Udzungwa Mountains & Kilombero Floodplains

Primate

Red-tailed monkey

Cercopithecus ascanius

A small forest monkey with a white nose spot and a rust-red tail. At Gombe it shares the forest with chimpanzees, and sometimes with blue monkeys it has interbred with.

Seen in

Gombe & Mahale Mountains, Lake Tanganyika

Mammal