Mammal Crocuta crocuta
Clever, social and the crater’s top predator by numbers. Listen for the whooping call after dark.
The spotted hyena is one of the most misunderstood animals in Africa. Clans of up to eighty animals are led by females, hunt wildebeest and zebra in the open, and communicate with a range of whoops and giggles that carry across the plains at night.
The Ngorongoro Crater has a very high density of hyenas and is the best place to watch their social life. In the Serengeti they follow the migration, and den sites with cubs are a treat in the calving season.
Ngorongoro Crater floor, the Serengeti plains and Tarangire.
Guide’s tipHyenas are skilled hunters, not just scavengers. On the crater floor they kill more than the lions do.
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.
Huge elephant herds, ancient baobabs and Tanzania’s endemic birds.
A volcanic caldera with black rhino, lions and big grassland birds.
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.
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.
