Mammal Giraffa tippelskirchi
Tanzania’s national animal, with jagged star-shaped patches. Common almost everywhere except inside the crater.
The Masai giraffe is the tallest animal on earth and the national symbol of Tanzania. Its patches are darker and more jagged than those of other giraffes, and no two animals are alike.
Arusha National Park gives you giraffes against Mount Meru within an hour of town. In Tarangire they browse the acacias above the elephants, and in the Serengeti the big bulls neck-fight in the open. The steep crater walls keep them out of Ngorongoro.
Arusha National Park with Mount Meru behind, Tarangire and the Serengeti woodlands.
Guide’s tipWatch a giraffe drink. The splayed-leg stance makes it vulnerable, so it checks for lions for a long time first.
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.
Montane forest, the Momella Lakes and Hartlaub’s Turaco, just 45 minutes from Arusha.
The Rift Valley soda lake where East Africa’s Lesser Flamingos breed.
Seasonal soda lake with flamingos, waterbirds and quiet dry bush.
Huge elephant herds, ancient baobabs and Tanzania’s endemic birds.
Tree-climbing lions, groundwater forest and a soda lake full of waterbirds.
Vast plains, the Great Migration and big cats all year round.
Tanzania’s largest park: big predators, baobab plains and 570+ bird species.
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.
Equus quagga
The migration’s other half. Hundreds of thousands of zebra move with the wildebeest across the Serengeti.
Connochaetes taurinus
The Great Migration itself: 1.5 million animals circling the Serengeti, calving in the south each February.
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.
