95 Fun Facts About The Serengeti

The Serengeti National Park lies in the north of which country?

Tanzania holds the national park, but the wider Serengeti region spills over the border into south-western Kenya.

The name Serengeti is popularly said to come from a Maasai word meaning what?

'Endless plains' is the popular gloss of a Maa word, siringet, but that word doesn't actually appear in Maa dictionaries.

Which grazers often travel ahead of the wildebeest herds on the Serengeti's great migration?

Zebras, in their hundreds of thousands, move ahead of well over a million wildebeest as the rains ripen the grass.

The migrating herds cross into which Kenyan reserve for the dry season?

The 'Mara' in the Maasai Mara's name is Maa for 'spotted', after the short bushy trees that dot its plains.

Roughly how long is the Serengeti's complete great migration loop?

About 800 km: the herds circle from the southern plains north into Kenya and back again each year.

Roughly how many wildebeest die on the Serengeti migration each year from thirst, hunger, exhaustion or predators?

About 250,000 die on the trek, the price the herds pay for moving on to fresh grazing.

About how many wildebeest calves are born on the short-grass plains within a few weeks each February?

About 500,000 calves arrive within a few weeks, a glut that swamps predators so more youngsters survive.

Which two rivers must the herds cross, where around 3,000 crocodiles lie in wait?

The Grumeti is crossed from about May and the Mara from about July, as the herds push north into Kenya.

Which is the only permanently flowing river in the Serengeti ecosystem?

The Mara keeps flowing through the dry season because it is fed from Kenya's rainy highlands far upstream.

Which colonial power governed Tanganyika when the Serengeti became a national park?

Britain ran Tanganyika after it was taken from Germany in the First World War, and its colonial government turned an older game reserve into the park.

Which protected area was split off the Serengeti park's eastern side in 1959 so resident Maasai could keep herding?

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area was designed as a multiple land-use area, where Maasai herders could live alongside wildlife.

The Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled example of what?

This volcanic caldera formed when a huge volcano erupted and collapsed on itself two to three million years ago; its floor covers 260 km².

Roughly how deep is the Ngorongoro Crater?

About 600 m deep, the crater's walls enclose a 260 km² floor that is home to some 25,000 large animals.

The name Ngorongoro is said to imitate the sound of what?

The Maasai are said to have named it after the 'ngoro ngoro' clang of a cowbell, so the name is onomatopoeic.

Which steep ravine in the eastern Serengeti plains is one of the world's most important sites for early human fossils?

Olduvai Gorge is about 48 km long, and its oldest hominin fossils are nearly 1.9 million years old.

Which husband-and-wife team pioneered the excavations at the Serengeti's famous fossil ravine in the 1950s?

Louis and Mary Leakey were behind most of the site's excavations, and the ravine is one of the country's National Historic Sites.

Which hominin's skull was found at Olduvai's FLK site in July 1959?

Zinjanthropus boisei, now Paranthropus boisei, had a big crest atop its skull to anchor huge chewing muscles.

Which German zoo director made the 1959 film Serengeti Shall Not Die with his son?

Bernhard Grzimek ran Frankfurt Zoo and was a household name in West Germany through his TV series Ein Platz für Tiere.

Which bird struck the plane Michael was flying while filming Serengeti Shall Not Die?

A vulture: Michael lost control of the plane and was killed in the crash.

Which Academy Award did Serengeti Shall Not Die win in 1960?

Best Documentary Feature went to the film, and its best-selling companion book appeared in more than 20 languages.

Roughly how many lions live across the Serengeti ecosystem, Africa's largest lion population?

About 3,000 lions live across the ecosystem, and the park and its Kenyan neighbour together form a single Lion Conservation Unit.

An outbreak of which disease killed roughly a third of the Serengeti's lions in 1994?

Canine distemper killed about a third of the lions in six to seven months, and a second outbreak hit the Ngorongoro Crater's lions in 2001.

Which predator became extinct in the Serengeti National Park in the early 1990s before being returned in 2012?

The African wild dog stays scarce wherever lions and spotted hyenas abound: hyenas steal its kills and lions kill the dogs outright.

To roughly what number did 1980s poaching reduce the Serengeti's black rhinos?

About 10 at most: poaching left only a handful, and a 1993 survey found signs of just three in the central Serengeti.

Serengeti experiments with life-size toy lions showed that lionesses are drawn to males with what?

Darker manes signal higher testosterone, but they cost the male: dark-maned lions run hotter and eat smaller meals in hot weather.

What are the granite outcrops of the Serengeti plains, used as lookouts by predators, called?

Kopjes, from the Dutch for 'little heads', are granite outcrops pushed up about 180 million years ago that rise from the plains.

The Serengeti's grasslands grow on deposits from Kerimasi and which still-active volcano famous for its natrocarbonatite lava?

Ol Doinyo Lengai's unusual lava weathers so fast that it laid down the calcium-rich tuff and hard-pan soils beneath the short grass.

What is the main settlement inside the Serengeti National Park, home to its primary airstrip and research institute?

Seronera is the park's main settlement, and only park staff, researchers and lodge and camp workers may live inside the park.

Which American novelist hunted in the Serengeti on a 1933 safari that later fed his fiction?

Ernest Hemingway caught amoebic dysentery on the trip and was flown out to Nairobi past Kilimanjaro, which inspired The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

A plan dropped in 2011 and revived in 2024 proposed building what through Serengeti National Park?

A 452 km highway was dropped in 2011 after warnings it would cut across the migration, and a southern route around the park was weighed instead.

Which pressure has squeezed the Serengeti ecosystem well below its original size?

Human encroachment is the squeeze: some boundary areas saw human populations jump 400 per cent in a decade, pushing livestock into the herds' routes.

Thousands of the Serengeti's pastoralists died in the 1880s from an epidemic of which disease?

Cholera struck in the 1880s and smallpox followed in 1892, as drought and disease devastated the Maasai.

The Maasai language, Maa, belongs to which language family?

It is related to Dinka, Kalenjin and Nuer, and the Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers.

What is the Maa word for the traditionally red sheets Maasai people wrap around their bodies?

Shúkà is the Maa word for these body sheets; kanga is the Swahili name for one-piece garments, and a kikoi is a coastal sarong.

The Maasai warriors' famous 'jumping dance', performed at the Eunoto coming-of-age ceremony, is called what?

Adumu dancers take turns leaping straight up with their bodies held stiff, and they are judged on how high they jump.

Which 1982 rock song wrongly describes Kilimanjaro rising 'like Olympus above the Serengeti'?

Toto's 'Africa' puts Kilimanjaro above the Serengeti, though they're hundreds of kilometres apart; David Paich hadn't been to Africa when he wrote it.

Which band put a dual drum instrumental called 'Serengetti' on a 1978 album?

The Grateful Dead's drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann wrote 'Serengetti' for Shakedown Street, the album fans nicknamed 'Disco Dead'.

Roughly how fast can a blue wildebeest run at full speed?

About 80 km/h, and these wary antelopes gallop with their heads tossing and their tails waving.

By what other name is the blue wildebeest known?

The white-bearded gnu was first described in 1823 by English naturalist William Burchell.

Roughly how many bird species have been recorded in the Serengeti?

About 500 species have been recorded, from ostriches and kori bustards to shoebills and lesser flamingos.

How can so many grazers coexist in the Serengeti?

Each species eats a different part of the vegetation: Thomson's gazelles follow the wildebeest, feeding on short grass once taller grass is mown down.

What was the Serengeti Research Institute at the park's main settlement set up to monitor?

The great migration was its focus, and by 1981 the park covered 12,950 km², less than half of the whole Serengeti.

The Serengeti cat, a domestic breed first developed in 1994, was bred to resemble which wild African cat?

The Serval look came without serval blood: biologist Karen Sausman crossed Bengals with Oriental Shorthairs to keep the breed fully domestic.

In a Serengeti spotted hyena clan, which members hold the highest rank?

The adult females rule: they are larger and more aggressive than males, and the top female's descendants outrank everyone else.

Which long-legged Serengeti bird of prey kills snakes by stamping on them with its feet?

The Secretarybird's kick lands with about five times its body weight in roughly 15 milliseconds, fast enough to stun a venomous snake.

The Grumeti, Mara and Mbalageti rivers all flow west out of the Serengeti into what?

Lake Victoria, which all three rivers feed, is Africa's largest lake and the world's largest tropical lake.

Deforestation in which Kenyan forest has changed the flow of a key Serengeti river?

The Mau Forest, East Africa's largest indigenous montane forest, feeds several rivers, but more than a quarter of it has been cleared since 1973.

At the migration's river crossings, what kills far more wildebeest than crocodiles do?

Drowning and trampling kill about 6,250 wildebeest a year at one river, while crocodiles there eat only about 2% of the carcasses.

Which Serengeti cat often hauls its kills up into trees, out of reach of other predators?

Leopard: it even hunts from trees, where its spotted coat blends with the leaves until it pounces.

Where was Serengeti Shall Not Die's director laid to rest after his death in 1987?

He was laid next to his son at Ngorongoro, on the crater rim where Michael had been buried in 1959.

Alan Root's 1974 Survival film about the Serengeti migration was titled what?

The Year of the Wildebeest was one of many Survival films by Alan and Joan Root, and Alan had earlier shot footage for Serengeti Shall Not Die.

Wildlife filmmakers Alan and Joan Root shot scenes for their 1974 Serengeti migration film from what unusual vantage?

In Safari by Balloon the following year, the Roots made the first hot-air balloon flight over Kilimanjaro.

Which primatologist was Serengeti filmmaker Hugo van Lawick married to from 1964 to 1974?

Jane Goodall married him after he was sent to film her Gombe chimpanzees, and the two stayed friends after their 1974 divorce.

Who narrated the 1994 IMAX documentary Africa: The Serengeti?

James Earl Jones had voiced Mufasa in The Lion King that same year, and that film's composer, Hans Zimmer, worked on this soundtrack too.

Which pop impresario behind American Idol created the 2019 BBC wildlife drama Serengeti?

Simon Fuller, who also managed the Spice Girls, had drama writers turn the footage into soap-style storylines for the animals.

Which Oscar winner voiced the 2019 drama Serengeti, which earned an Emmy nomination?

Lupita Nyong'o, who won her Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, voiced the series, while John Boyega narrated the BBC broadcast.

George Schaller's study The Serengeti Lion won which US literary prize in 1973?

The National Book Award went to the lion study Schaller began after moving to the Serengeti in 1966, one of the first field studies of big cats.

Which Serengeti animal oozes a reddish skin secretion that works as a natural sunscreen?

The Hippopotamus's 'red sweat' isn't true sweat, and its red and orange pigments block some ultraviolet light and stop microbes growing.

Snapshot Serengeti, a celebrated citizen-science project, had volunteers classify what?

Volunteers sorted camera-trap photos from 225 motion-triggered cameras, and The Ecologist named it a top ten citizen science project.

The word 'safari', long tied to Serengeti game drives, comes from a Swahili word meaning what?

Journey is the everyday Swahili sense, so a bus trip from Nairobi to Mombasa is a safari too; the word traces back to Arabic safar.

Curbing which cattle disease from the 1950s let Serengeti wildebeest numbers soar?

Rinderpest kept wildebeest in check until 1950s cattle vaccination; as the herds grew they ate the grass that fuelled wildfires, and trees returned.

Hans Kruuk's seven-year Serengeti study overturned which belief about spotted hyenas?

The belief that they only scavenge fell when Kruuk found hyenas hunt as much as lions; hunting supplies half to 98% of their diet.

Why are spotted hyena clans smaller in the Serengeti than in the Ngorongoro Crater?

Their prey there is migratory, while crater clans live beside resident herds all year; even so, a clan tops out at about 80 hyenas.

The Serengeti's Thomson's gazelle is named after an explorer of which nationality?

Grant's gazelle, its larger plains neighbour, is likewise named after a Scottish explorer, James Grant.

What is the Thomson's gazelle's stiff-legged bounding leap, a show of fitness, called?

Stotting, also called pronking, may tell a cheetah the gazelle is too fit to catch, and cheetahs do abandon more hunts when their prey stots.

Which Serengeti resident is the national animal of Tanzania?

The Masai giraffe, also called the Kilimanjaro giraffe, is the largest-bodied giraffe species, which makes it the tallest land animal on Earth.

Giraffe bulls in the Serengeti usually carry an extra what between their eyes?

Ossicones are skin-covered bony knobs that bulls swing like clubs when they fight.

The kori bustard that struts the Serengeti plains holds which distinction?

Africa's largest flying bird may also be the heaviest animal still able to fly, and Serengeti males average about 12 kg.

The wildebeest rut typically begins on which night, hinting at a lunar influence?

A full moon often starts the rut, though a 2018 study argues bulls' rutting calls, not the moon, are what synchronise the herd.

What prompts the Serengeti herds to leave Kenya and head south again in early November?

The start of the short rains greens the southern plains, and the herds usually reach them by December, in time for February calving.

Rabies jabs for which animals protect Serengeti villagers and the region's wildlife?

Domestic dogs are the only species needed to keep rabies going across most of Africa, so vaccinating them has prevented hundreds of human deaths.

Roughly how large is Serengeti National Park itself?

About 15,000 km², yet that's only about half of the wider Serengeti, whose protected lands cover roughly 30,000 km².

Serengeti National Park is classed as a Category II protected area under whose system?

IUCN names Category II 'National Park', yet places called national parks turn up in every one of its categories.

The Serengeti's long rains fall in which months?

March to May brings the long rains, and as they end the herds begin moving north-west.

Which body modification is traditional for both Maasai men and women?

Stretched earlobes are pierced with thorns and widened with twigs or stones, and both men and women wear metal hoops in them.

Which tiny Serengeti antelope uses its long snout to keep from overheating?

Dik-dik: its name probably echoes the whistling alarm call it makes through that snout when frightened.

Which animal did young Maasai warriors traditionally hunt to prove their courage?

Lion hunting, called olamayio, earned a young warrior a lion name, but it is now banned and many warriors guard lions instead.

Mara Region, home to most of the Serengeti, was the birthplace of which founding president?

Julius Nyerere was born and is buried in Butiama, where a museum tells the story of the country's independence.

A February 2013 vote held in Arusha named the Ngorongoro Crater one of what?

The Seven Natural Wonders of Africa also include the Serengeti migration, Kilimanjaro, the Sahara, the Nile, the Red Sea reef and the Okavango Delta.

Which bird often rides on Serengeti buffalo, picking ticks off their hides?

Oxpeckers do eat ticks, but they also drink blood, and they've been seen opening wounds on their hosts to get it.

In blue wildebeest, which sexes grow horns?

Both bulls and cows grow the curved horns, which are shaped like parentheses, though a bull's horns are bigger.

The Ngorongoro Crater's only endemic mammal, named Mduma's, is what kind of animal?

Mduma's shrew lives only in montane forest on the crater rim, and smallholder farming there has left it endangered.

Why is the lion population of the Ngorongoro Crater notably inbred?

Few outside males get in to breed, because the crater's resident males drive out the rare newcomers that do climb down.

Which biting insects' 1962 plague cut the Ngorongoro Crater's lions from about 100 to 12?

Stable flies swarmed after drought gave way to dry-season rain, and their bites left infected sores; the lions recovered to about 100 by 1975.

The name Olduvai comes from a Maasai word for which plant that grows through the gorge?

Wild sisal is what oldupai means: asked about the ravine, locals gave the plant's name, which a German doctor wrote down as 'Oldoway'.

Wilhelm Kattwinkel found Olduvai's fossil beds in 1911 while in East Africa studying what?

Sleeping sickness research brought him to German East Africa, and at the gorge he spotted fossil bones of an extinct three-toed horse.

In 1931 at Olduvai, a young archaeologist won a bet with geologist Hans Reck by quickly finding what?

A hand axe of volcanic rock won the bet, since Reck had hunted for flint tools in 1913 and found none; 77 more turned up within four days.

The 3.6-million-year-old hominin footprints at Laetoli, near the Serengeti, were preserved in what?

Volcanic ash, still wet when three early humans walked through it, was buried by later eruptions, sealing the oldest known human footprints.

What nickname did newspapers give Olduvai's 1959 skull OH 5 for its massive jaws?

Nutcracker Man was a poor guess at its diet: the big jaws suggested cracking nuts, but its teeth point to tough plants such as grasses and sedges.

Andrew Hill spotted the first Laetoli footprints in 1976 after falling while dodging what?

A ball of elephant dung thrown by a colleague sent him sprawling, and with his face inches from the rock he spotted antelope and rhino prints.

Which small Serengeti member of the hyena family lives almost entirely on termites?

The Aardwolf, the smallest of the four hyena species, laps up to 300,000 termites a night with its long, sticky tongue.

Which glassmaker developed the Serengeti sunglasses brand, known for photochromic lenses?

Corning nearly shut the line in 1984 before Zaki Mustafa grew its sales from $5 million to $62 million in seven years.

Chicago rapper Serengeti formed the trio Sisyphus with Son Lux and which indie songwriter?

Sufjan Stevens and Son Lux made up the rest of Sisyphus, and Serengeti, born David Cohn, is the great-nephew of jazz trumpeter Sonny Cohn.

The volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai has a Maasai name meaning what?

Mountain of God fits the Maasai myth that the god Engai withdrew there after a hunter struck him with an arrow.

Which click-speaking hunter-gatherers live around Lake Eyasi below the Serengeti plateau?

Only about 1,200-1,300 Hadza remain, and roughly a third still live entirely by foraging for honey, tubers and game.