50 Fun Facts About Safari

Via which explorer did 'safari', from Swahili for 'journey', enter English in the 1850s?

The Swahili word itself comes from the Arabic 'safar', to journey.

Which five animals make up the safari 'Big Five'?

The list has nothing to do with size or beauty; it was drawn up by hunters.

Why were the Big Five given that name?

The term was coined by big-game hunters and later adopted wholesale by the tourist industry.

The Serengeti's name is believed to derive from a Maasai word usually interpreted as meaning what?

The disputed root is 'seringit'; the neighbouring Masai Mara takes 'Mara' from the Maa word for 'spotted', after the bushy trees dotting it.

Roughly how many wildebeest take part in the Serengeti-Mara Great Migration each year?

They are joined by about 260,000 zebras and hundreds of thousands of gazelles, and around 250,000 wildebeest die along the way.

Kruger National Park became South Africa's first national park in which year?

It began as a game reserve in 1898 under President Paul Kruger and now forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Kruger has more species of large mammal than any other African game reserve. How many?

All of the Big Five are there, but rhino poaching is severe: more than 520 were killed in the park in 2013 alone.

The Okavango Delta in Botswana is unusual among deltas because its river does what?

The Okavango spills into a tectonic trough in the Kalahari and mostly evaporates; in 2014 it became the 1,000th UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Okavango's annual flood originates from summer rains in the highlands of which country?

The surge travels about 1,200 km in roughly a month, then spreads across the delta between March and June.

Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania holds what geological distinction?

It formed when a large volcano erupted and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago; the floor covers about 260 square kilometres.

Which famous Leakey family hominin site lies within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area?

Homo habilis remains were among the discoveries; the area became a UNESCO site in 1979.

Etosha, in Namibia, is described as the world's most important custodian of which animal?

Its name means 'Great White Place' in Oshindonga, after the vast salt pan that makes up nearly a quarter of the park.

Etosha was first proclaimed a game reserve in 1907 under which colonial administration?

Governor Friedrich von Lindequist signed Ordinance 88; national park status came in 1967.

In which year was Kenya's Masai Mara reserve originally established as a wildlife sanctuary?

It covers 1,510 square kilometres in Narok County; the wildebeest usually cross the Mara River from Tanzania around July.

Roughly how fast can the fastest land animal, an African big cat, run?

Unlike other cats its claws are only partly retractile, and it mostly hunts by day.

The dark 'tear streaks' running from the eyes to the mouth are unique to which safari cat?

As of 2022 only about a dozen of the Asiatic subspecies survived, in Iran.

What are the closest living relatives of the hippopotamus?

They diverged about 55 million years ago; the name is Greek for 'river horse'.

The red secretion on a hippo's skin, nicknamed 'blood sweat', actually functions as what?

It is neither blood nor sweat, and it is debated whether hippos can swim at all: they walk or bounce along the bottom.

A feral population of hippos in South America descends from animals kept by which man?

They escaped from his Colombian estate after his death in 1993 and have multiplied in the Magdalena river basin.

How tall does a fully grown giraffe stand?

Its 11 kg heart has to generate roughly double the blood pressure a human needs.

Why is a giraffe's 45 cm tongue thought to be black?

The horn-like structures on its head are called ossicones and both sexes have them.

The African bush elephant's gestation period, the longest of any mammal, lasts about how long?

Both sexes have tusks that keep growing for life; the species has been listed as Endangered since 2021.

How many finger-like tips does an African elephant's trunk end in?

Asian elephants have only one; the big ears help shed body heat.

Which hypothesis for zebra stripes is most strongly supported by the evidence?

Each zebra's pattern is unique and heritable, and beneath the coat the skin is black.

The last captive quagga died in which city's zoo in 1883?

There are three living zebra species: plains, mountain and Grévy's, the last being the largest wild equid.

The name 'wildebeest' comes from which language, meaning 'wild beast'?

Also called gnu, calves are on their feet within minutes of birth and moving with the herd soon after.

Spotted hyena society is unusual among mammals for what reason?

Despite the scavenger reputation, hunting supplies at least half and up to 98 percent of their diet.

Hyenas belong to the suborder Feliformia; they are closer to which animals than to dogs?

A pack of spotted hyenas will usually beat lionesses off a kill if they outnumber them four to one and no male lion is present.

A group of lions, the most social of wild cats, is called what?

They are inactive for about twenty hours a day, and the females usually hunt together.

Outside Africa, wild lions survive only in and around which Indian national park?

African populations fell by about 43 percent from the early 1990s, and the species has been Vulnerable since 1996.

The two man-eating lions of Tsavo, which attacked railway workers in 1898, lacked what?

Lt Col John Henry Patterson shot them; their remains are on permanent display at Chicago's Field Museum, and Val Kilmer played Patterson in The Ghost and the Darkness.

The African wild dog's scientific name Lycaon pictus refers to its coat and means roughly what?

It lacks a dewclaw, which lengthens its stride, and packs 'vote' on whether to hunt by sneezing.

What share of African wild dog chases typically end in a kill?

Only about 6,600 adults survive in 39 subpopulations; the species has been Endangered since 1990.

Panke, the Zimbabwe baobab that was the oldest known flowering plant, was roughly how old when it died in 2011?

Baobabs store up to 120,000 litres of water in their trunks; six of the eight species grow only in Madagascar.

The meerkat of the Kalahari is a small member of which family?

Some individuals always stand sentry, and they are immune to scorpion venom.

Roosevelt's 1909-10 African safari collected roughly how many specimens for the Smithsonian?

Andrew Carnegie paid for it; the party landed at Mombasa and travelled to Khartoum, and cataloguing the haul took eight years.

Which explorer established the classic safari daily routine in 1836?

Newland & Tarlton, founded in 1904, later pioneered the luxury tented safari.

Which American author's 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' helped popularise the safari?

Roosevelt's African Game Trails had done the same for the previous generation.

Which Boer statesman is regarded as the founder of the game reserve, proclaimed in 1898, that took his name?

The park spans the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga and covers 19,623 square kilometres.

Newborn wildebeest calves can do what within minutes of birth?

Calving is timed for January to March, the start of the wet season, when predators are swamped by numbers.

The 'king' variety of the fastest land animal differs from the ordinary form in what way?

It is a genetic variety, not a separate species.

Which of the following ranks the hippopotamus among land mammals by size?

Its aggressive, unpredictable nature makes it one of the most dangerous animals in the world.

A black panther in Africa is a melanistic form of which safari animal?

The dark coat is caused by a recessive allele, and the cat's rosettes are still faintly visible beneath it.

Which large African predator is the only one outranked by the rosette-coated big cat?

Lions, hyenas and wild dogs all have the edge through size or pack numbers, and lions can account for 22 percent of leopard deaths in some reserves.

What term describes the fused horn bases that shield the forehead of a male Cape buffalo?

From the base the horns sweep down, then curve up and outwards, and in big bulls the tips can be more than a metre apart.

How do female African buffalo appear to decide which way the herd will travel?

After about an hour of standing, shuffling and sitting back down, the herd moves the way the majority faced, regardless of rank.

Which is the smallest and hairiest of the five living rhino species?

It lives at high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra and averages about 775 kg, a third of a white rhino's weight.

How many chromosomes does the black rhinoceros have, unlike the 82 of every other rhino species?

The species also stands up to 1.75 metres at the shoulder and can exceptionally weigh 1,800 kg.

Which luxury outfitter, run by Lord Cranworth, is credited with creating safari-style clothing?

Cranworth kitted out his friend Theodore Roosevelt for the 1909-10 expedition, though some sources credit Willis & Geiger instead.

Which 1931 film is cited as the start of the safari's long run in sound cinema?

The genre ran through the Tarzan and Jungle Jim series to The Naked Prey in 1965, and was spoofed by Bob Hope in Road to Zanzibar.