The Big Five — Africa’s Most Famous Animals
The term Big Five was coined by big game hunters in the nineteenth century to describe the five animals considered most dangerous to hunt on foot: lion, leopard, elephant, Cape buffalo, and black rhinoceros. The danger came not from their size alone but from their tendency to charge when wounded or cornered, making them far more lethal than larger but more passive animals like hippopotamuses or giraffes. Today the term is used by safari-goers to mean five animals that top most people’s must-see lists — though for entirely different reasons than those hunters had.
Seeing all five on a single safari is genuinely possible in several of our destinations. The Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania offers arguably the best Big Five viewing on the continent — it is a collapsed volcanic caldera about twenty kilometres across, and within it live lions, leopards, elephants, buffalos, and one of the few remaining black rhino populations in East Africa, all within a confined and easily navigable space. The Masai Mara, Amboseli, Ol Pejeta, and Lake Nakuru in Kenya each have strong populations of several Big Five species. Tell us which animals matter most to you and we will build your itinerary around them.