At the gate your guide takes the paperwork inside, you get out of the car to stretch your legs, and then the barrier goes up. What you see after that comes down to two things, which parks are on your route and which month you are travelling. So this page is ordered that way, from the animals you see every day to the ones you need luck for. Tanzania holds a great deal more than the Big Five. And the sighting you end up telling people about afterwards is usually not the rarest one.
The short answer
Most of it you see without trying. A handful depends on your route and the month you come. A few need luck, or a plan.
1. Certain: zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, impala, Thomson’s gazelle, warthog, elephant, buffalo, baboon.
2. Likely, depending on your route: lion, hippo, crocodile, hyena, jackal, mongoose, dik-dik, flamingo.
3. Luck or a plan: leopard, cheetah, rhino, serval, chimpanzee.
The Big Five, and why it is not the point
The Big Five are lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino, and all five live in Tanzania. The name comes from hunting, the five animals that were hardest to shoot on foot, which is not the same list as the five best to watch. On a normal northern route you have a fair chance of four of them. Rhino is the hard one, a few hundred in the whole country, and the crater floor is the one place you have a real chance. Tick all five and you will still find that the morning you talk about afterwards was something else entirely.
What you are certain to see
These nine fill your days, not the five on the posters. You watch them for hours, until you know them by the way they move.
Zebra. Everywhere, in every park, all year. By the second day you notice that no two patterns of stripes are the same. On the migration they often walk ahead of the wildebeest, because they eat the longer, coarser grass and leave the short growth behind.
Wildebeest. In the migration months they gather in their hundreds of thousands. The rest of the year they stand about the plains in smaller groups. They look assembled out of spare parts, and they walk hundreds of kilometres a year doing it.
Giraffe. Watch one drink. He splays his front legs, lowers his head around two metres, and spends minutes checking everything around him before he commits. It is the most exposed moment of his day and he knows it.
Impala. They stand in every verge, which is why most people have stopped looking at them by day three. Look again. The three black stripes on the rump make an M from behind, and the guides call them the McDonald’s of the savannah.
Thomson’s gazelle. Smaller, with a black band along the flank, and almost always moving. Cheetah hunt them. So where a lot of them are gathered, it is worth scanning the ground around them.
Warthog. He runs with his tail straight up like an aerial, and that is the picture everybody takes home. He grazes on his front knees, because his neck is too short to reach the grass any other way.
Elephant. Most numerous in Tarangire, along the river in the dry months. A herd is a family, led by the oldest cow. Switch the engine off and sit still, and they will sometimes walk around the car.
Buffalo. They move in herds of hundreds and they are always on the crater floor. Mostly they chew and stare at you, which is what they are famous for.
Baboon. At the gates and the picnic sites, where they are bold. Leave nothing loose in the car when you get out, not even a closed bag.
After a week you stop hunting rarities and start watching behaviour. Two zebra laying their necks over each other’s backs so they can watch in both directions at once. A young elephant that has not yet worked out what its trunk is for. Those are the ones people remember, and they are on nobody’s wish list.
What is likely, and what it depends on
These you usually see, and whether you do comes down to where you go. The table further down turns that into routes.
Lion. Close to certain in the Serengeti and on the crater floor, far less so in the smaller parks. Early morning and late afternoon are when you find them. In the middle of the day they are lying in the shade and you drive straight past.
Hippo. Close to certain if your route passes a hippo pool, and close to nowhere if it does not. The pools are in fixed places, so it comes down to whether you drive by one.
Crocodile. Wherever the hippo lie. They are well camouflaged and can hold still for hours, so usually you see one because your guide points at it.
Hyena. Seen far more often than people expect, and nearly always early in the morning. They are not only scavengers, they hunt. There are hundreds on the crater floor.
Jackal. On the open plains, alone or in pairs, usually trotting somewhere. Where there has been a kill, there is probably one nearby.
Mongoose. They come out along the roadside in groups and vanish the moment you stop. Children regularly name them the best animal of the day.
Dik-dik. Tiny, always in pairs, usually in thicker bush. Spot one and look left and right, because the other is almost always within a few metres.
Flamingo. Entirely down to water, at Lake Manyara and Lake Natron. In a dry year they are not there, and nobody can promise you otherwise.
What you need luck for
Leopard. The hardest of the big cats to find. The Seronera valley is where you have the best chance of one.
Cheetah. The short grass plains of Ndutu and the southern Serengeti, with the best odds in the green season. They hunt by day, which makes them easier to watch than a leopard once you have found one. Three nights or more in the Serengeti and your chances are good.
Rhino. A few hundred in the whole country. The crater floor is the one place you have a real chance, and usually at a distance.
Serval. A slender cat on long legs with oversized ears, hunting rodents in long grass. Early morning in the Serengeti is when they turn up.
Chimpanzee. Only in the west, at Gombe and Mahale on Lake Tanganyika. That is a separate trip, not a day out from the northern parks.
And the birds
Canada, the United States and Mexico between them have around 850 recorded bird species. Tanzania has more than a thousand. You do not need to be a birder to notice that. The first time your guide stops the car for a bee-eater, or for something large walking across the plain on foot, you see why he did. The colours are not subtle here. By the end of a week most people are asking what that one is called.
Which animal in which park
A classic northern route gives you elephant in Tarangire, the most animals per square kilometre on the floor of the Ngorongoro Crater, and a Serengeti that depends on where the herds are standing that month. February in the Serengeti is a different park from August. That is why we build each route separately rather than pick one off a list. Below is the short version. Which months suit you depends on what sits at the top of your own list.
Park | What it is known for | Best months |
Serengeti | The migration, lion, cheetah, and leopard around Seronera | Depends on where the herds are |
Ngorongoro Crater | Many animals in a small area, and rhino | All year |
Tarangire | Large numbers of elephant among the baobabs | Dry season, June to October |
Lake Manyara | Birds, flamingo and forest animals | All year |
Ruaha and Nyerere | Large populations and few other people | Dry season |
Gombe and Mahale | Chimpanzees | Dry season |
The monkeys
Baboons you meet at the gates and the picnic sites, in troops of dozens, and they are the bold ones. Vervet monkeys sit in the trees around the lodges and along the rivers, with a pale face and a habit of watching you eat. Black and white colobus live in the forested areas, with a long white mantle down the back and a tail to match. And the chimpanzees are in the west, at Gombe and Mahale on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. That is a separate journey rather than a day trip from the north. The flight west takes most of a day.
What you do not see
Meerkats. They are not here, they live in southern Africa, and people ask about them more than anything else on this list. Gorillas are not here either, they are in Rwanda and Uganda. Tigers are not in Africa at all. Most snakes, spiders and insects you will never see, and what there is to know about them sits on our page about dangerous animals. Zanzibar is a different story altogether, where the best known animal is the red colobus of Jozani. Which animals you see comes down to the parks on your route and the month you travel, and that is why we build each route rather than sell one off a shelf. Tell us what you want to see, and we will tell you what that takes.
