50 Fun Facts About Savanna

A savanna is best described as which kind of biome?

The open canopy lets enough light reach the ground to keep an unbroken layer of grass growing beneath the trees.

Roughly what share of the Earth's land area is covered by savanna?

Unlike North American prairies and Eurasian steppes, savannas mostly sit in warm to hot climates in Africa, Australia, South America and India.

'Savanna' reached English via Spanish from which Caribbean language?

It first appeared in English in 1555 as "Zauana", describing a plain in present-day Panama.

Which English explorer's 1697–1705 travel volumes fixed the British spelling 'savannah', with a final H?

He applied it to sandy woodlands on an island in the Bay of Campeche and later to landscapes in Sumatra and the Philippines.

All savanna environments share year-to-year variation in rainfall and what other factor?

Controlled burns kill tree seedlings but spare mature trees, which is exactly what stops a closed canopy from forming.

Annual rainfall in savannas typically ranges from about 500 mm up to roughly how much?

The rain falls mostly in six or eight months of the year, followed by a period of drought.

In the Köppen system, the tropical savanna climate with a dry winter is given which code?

The driest month gets less than 60 mm of rain; a dry-summer variant is coded As.

It is estimated that less than what percentage of savanna ecosystems can be classed as highly intact?

Grazing livestock, tree clearing and changed fire regimes are the main reasons for the degradation.

Indigenous fire-stick farming is credited with the savanna of tropical Australia and which neighbouring island?

Aboriginal burning created a mosaic of habitats and probably increased biodiversity across northern Australia.

Which family of mammals predominates in the Australian savanna?

Cattle, horses, camels, donkeys and Asian water buffalo have all been introduced there by humans.

Which tree, with Acacia and Pandanus, dominates Australia's savanna vegetation?

The grass layer includes kangaroo grass, of the genus Themeda, which also turns up in dry East African savannas.

The Cerrado, a vast tropical savanna, is the second-largest habitat type of which country?

It covers about 21 percent of the country's land and is a shifting mosaic of open savanna and gallery forest along streams.

The Llanos, a vast tropical grassland east of the Andes, straddles Venezuela and which other country?

Its main river is the Orinoco, which forms part of the border between the two countries.

The Serengeti spans southwestern Kenya and which country, home to most of its protected area?

The protected zone covers about 30,000 square kilometres, including Serengeti National Park and several game reserves.

The name "Serengeti" is usually said to come from a Maa word meaning what?

Maasai pastoralists began migrating into the area in the early 1800s, before drought and disease struck them.

The great wildebeest migration begins each year in which conservation area of the southern Serengeti?

The herds loop clockwise, reaching Kenya in late July or August and returning south with the short rains in November for calving in February.

The Maasai Mara reserve in Kenya was originally established as a wildlife sanctuary in which year?

It then covered only 520 square kilometres, including the Mara Triangle, and is contiguous with Serengeti National Park.

The Great Migration crossing of the Mara River into the Maasai Mara usually happens in which month?

The Mara is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa and named for the Maasai people, who migrated there from the Nile Basin.

The Sahel, the savanna belt south of the Sahara, takes its name from an Arabic word for what?

The name is a figurative reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara, and the belt runs 5,900 km from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

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

Parts of it had been protected since 1898 under President Paul Kruger, and it drew close to 2 million visitors in 2024.

What is the largest and heaviest living land animal?

Big bulls average 3 to 3.4 metres at the shoulder and 5 to 7 tonnes; the largest recorded stood nearly 4 metres.

Since which year has the savanna elephant been listed as Endangered by the IUCN?

It is threatened foremost by habitat destruction and, in parts of its range, by poaching for meat and ivory.

A savanna elephant's trunk ends in how many finger-like tips?

Its large ears help shed body heat, and both sexes grow curved tusks that keep growing throughout life.

Giraffes are the tallest land animals and also the largest of which group of mammals?

Their only living relative in the family Giraffidae is the okapi of the Congo forests.

What are the horn-like structures on a giraffe's head called?

Both sexes have them, and they can reach 13.5 cm; males also fight by "necking", swinging their necks like weapons.

How does a giraffe end up so much taller than its relatives?

The recurrent laryngeal nerve, which loops down the neck and back up, is over 30 cm longer on the left side than the right.

Studies in captivity found that giraffes sleep about how many hours a day?

They mostly sleep lying down, though standing naps have been recorded, especially in older animals.

Which savanna animal is the fastest on land, reaching 93 to 104 km/h?

It is built for speed with powerful hindlimbs, long legs and a flexible spine, and it can only partly retract its claws.

The cheetah's genus name Acinonyx roughly means "immobile nails", a reference to what?

Four subspecies survive, in fragmented populations across Africa and in central Iran.

Besides sub-Saharan Africa, wild lions survive today in only one other country. Which?

In the Neolithic they ranged from Southeast Europe to India, but now only one western Indian population remains outside Africa.

A lion pride is made up of related females and cubs plus what?

Adult males constantly compete to keep or win their place in the pride.

Spotted hyena society is unusual among mammals in what way?

It is also the only placental mammal in which females have a pseudo-penis, and it can digest skin and bone.

Contrary to its reputation, the spotted hyena is primarily what?

It scavenges when it can, and its dual-purpose teeth let it eat and digest skin, bone and other animal waste.

How many living species of zebra are there?

They are Grévy's, the plains and the mountain zebra, and each animal's stripe pattern is unique.

Most evidence supports which explanation for why zebras have stripes?

The older camouflage and predator-confusion hypotheses have far less support, and a 2021 study even disputed the "motion dazzle" idea.

The name wildebeest was given by Dutch settlers around 1700 and means what?

The two species, black and blue, are also called gnu, and the blue wildebeest population is around 1.5 million.

Blue wildebeest calving is remarkably synchronised: what share of calves are born within a 21-day window?

Calves weigh about 19 kg at birth and can usually stand within minutes, which matters when lions, hyenas and crocodiles are watching.

The ostrich is the largest living bird and can run at what speed, making it the fastest bird on land?

Adults weigh up to 145 kg and lay the largest eggs of any living land animal.

The secretarybird, an African bird of prey with crane-like legs, kills its prey how?

It appears on the coats of arms of both South Africa and Sudan, and its Latin name means "archer serpent-eater".

Roughly how many active termite mounds are found in the northern part of Kruger National Park alone?

Of nearly 3,000 known termite species, some 1,000 live in Africa, and their mounds alter soil hydrology and nutrients across the savanna.

Australia's compass termite gets its name from mounds that are aligned how?

The tall wedge-shaped mounds, up to 4 metres high, stay cooler in the midday sun because only their thin edge faces north.

Unlike ants, most termite colonies are founded by what?

Termites were the first social insects to evolve a caste system, more than 100 million years ago.

The baobab genus Adansonia is native to Africa, Australia and which large island, its probable place of origin?

Baobabs are among the longest-lived vascular plants and are nicknamed the "upside down tree".

A baobab's large flowers remain reproductive for a maximum of how long?

In the early 21st century baobabs across southern Africa began dying rapidly and mysteriously, possibly from mass dehydration.

The umbrella thorn acacia of the African savanna is unusual for having what?

Its seed pods are flat and coiled like a spring, and the tree fixes nitrogen and tolerates drought, wind and salt.

Meerkats live in arid, open habitats in Namibia, South Africa and which other country?

Their range barely reaches southwestern Angola, and mobs of them will fiercely attack snakes that come near.

The Everglades, the Pantanal and the Sudd are examples of which category of this biome?

These seasonally or permanently inundated systems occur mostly in the tropics and subtropics and also include the Mesopotamian Marshes.

California's oak tree savannas, with mild rainy winters and hot dry summers, belong to which category?

They are part of the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion; South Australia's eucalyptus grasslands fall in the same bracket.

The Bogotá grasslands, at an average altitude of about 2,550 metres in the Andes, exemplify what?

It sits on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense; Angola's scarp savannas are a lower-altitude example of the same type, reaching about 1,000 metres.

Peter Martyr reported the word 'savanna' as the local name for a plain in which present-day country?

The plain lay around Comagre, court of the cacique Carlos; the word first appeared in English as 'Zauana' in 1555.