Mammal 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.
Grant’s gazelle is the big, elegant antelope you see standing in the heat of the day when everything else has found shade. It gets most of its water from the plants it eats, so it lives comfortably on plains that other grazers leave in the dry season.
Rams carry long, lyre-shaped horns and defend territories through the year. On the Lark Plains they are often the only large mammals in sight, sharing the grassland with Maasai cattle and the larks we come to find.
Short-grass plains of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, the Lark Plains north of Arusha and the drier edges of Tarangire.
Guide’s tipCheck the flank, not the size. Grant’s has no black side stripe; the smaller Thomson’s gazelle always does.
Sightings are never guaranteed: these are wild animals in wild places. What we can promise is a guide who knows where to look.
Destinations
The parks and reserves where our guides look for it, each with its own best season and safaris.
The Rift Valley soda lake where East Africa’s Lesser Flamingos breed.
The only place on earth to see the critically endangered Beesley’s Lark.
Huge elephant herds, ancient baobabs and Tanzania’s endemic birds.
Tree-climbing lions, groundwater forest and a soda lake full of waterbirds.
A volcanic caldera with black rhino, lions and big grassland birds.
Vast plains, the Great Migration and big cats all year round.
Keep exploring
Loxodonta africana
Tarangire’s big herds are the classic sight: families drifting between baobabs to the river in the dry season.
Panthera leo
The Serengeti holds one of the largest lion populations left in Africa. Prides of twenty are not unusual.
Panthera pardus
Secretive and beautiful. The Seronera valley’s sausage trees are the best place in Africa to find one by day.
Acinonyx jubatus
Built for the short grass plains. Watch one scan from a termite mound in the southern Serengeti.
Diceros bicornis
Critically endangered and closely guarded. The Ngorongoro Crater is the most reliable place in Tanzania to see one.
Syncerus caffer
The Big Five’s heavyweight. Herds of several hundred are a daily sight in Arusha National Park and the crater.
Giraffa tippelskirchi
Tanzania’s national animal, with jagged star-shaped patches. Common almost everywhere except inside the crater.
Equus quagga
The migration’s other half. Hundreds of thousands of zebra move with the wildebeest across the Serengeti.
Tell us your dates and the birds or animals you most want to see. We’ll reply within 24 hours with a route and a full quote.
