African savanna

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• Watch Animal Aardvark The aardvark is a shy night digger of African savannas. It sniffs out ant and termite nests, rips them open with its spade-like claws and laps up the insects with a sticky tongue about 30 centimeters long. Its name means 'earth pig' in Afrikaans.
• Watch Animal African buffalo The African buffalo is a huge, cow-like grazer with heavy, curving horns. It lives in herds that can number in the thousands, and a herd will rush to protect a calf in danger. It lives across much of Africa south of the Sahara, from open savannas to rainforests.
• Watch Animal African fish eagle The African fish eagle is a big eagle of Africa's lakes, rivers and coasts, with a white head, chest and tail and a chestnut-brown body. It snatches fish from the surface of the water, and its loud, ringing call is one of the best-known sounds of Africa.
• Watch 3D Animal African wild dog The African wild dog, or painted dog, has a patchy coat unlike any other dog's, big round ears and only four toes on its front feet. It lives in close packs that hunt together, share food and care for the pups. It is endangered: the IUCN estimated in 2025 that only about 1,676 adults are left in the wild.
• Watch Animal Black mamba The black mamba is a long, slender, very fast snake of the savannas and rocky hills of sub-Saharan Africa. It is gray to brown, gets its name from its inky-black mouth, hunts small mammals by day, and is shy: it would almost always rather slip away from people. It is also highly venomous, so it is a snake to admire from far away.
• Watch Animal Black rhinoceros The black rhinoceros is the smaller of Africa's two rhinos. It has two horns and a pointed, hooked upper lip that it uses to pick leaves and twigs from bushes. It is Critically Endangered, but thanks to rangers and conservationists its numbers have been climbing again.
• Watch Animal Blue wildebeest The blue wildebeest, or gnu, is a big antelope with a box-like head, curved horns, a mane and a beard. It grazes the savannas of eastern and southern Africa, and in the Serengeti huge herds travel in a giant circle every year following the rains.
• Watch Animal Caracal The caracal is a sleek, reddish-gold wild cat of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia to India. Its name comes from a Turkish word meaning "black ears", for its black-backed ears with long tufts. It hunts on the ground, but it can leap two meters or more into the air to catch birds.
• Watch 3D Animal Cheetah The cheetah is the fastest land animal. It can go from standing still to 72 kilometers per hour in about two and a half seconds, and its top speed is around 100 kilometers per hour, as fast as a car on a highway. Cheetahs live mostly in Africa, with a very small group in Iran.
• Watch Animal Common hippopotamus The common hippopotamus is one of the biggest animals on land, yet it spends most of the day resting in rivers and lakes to keep cool. At night it walks out to graze, and its special skin makes its own sunscreen.
• Watch 3D Animal Common ostrich The common ostrich is the tallest and heaviest bird alive. It cannot fly, but it is the fastest runner on two legs, sprinting at about 70 kilometers an hour across the savannas and deserts of Africa. It also lays the biggest egg of any living animal.
• Watch Animal Common warthog Common warthogs are tough wild pigs of the African savanna. They kneel down to eat short grass, sleep in old aardvark burrows and run with their tails held straight up like little flags. The bumps on their faces are thick pads of skin.
• Watch 3D Animal European bee-eater The European bee-eater is one of the most colorful birds in Europe. It catches bees, dragonflies and other flying insects in midair, knocks out the stings on a branch, and digs a long tunnel in a sandy bank for its nest. Every autumn it flies to Africa for the winter.
• Watch 3D Animal Giraffe Giraffes are the tallest animals on Earth. A long neck and a long dark tongue let them eat leaves from treetops that other animals cannot reach, and their patchy coats help them blend into the shade of the trees.
• Watch Animal Grévy's zebra Grévy's zebra is the largest zebra, with narrow stripes, a white belly and big, round ears. It lives only in the dry grasslands and scrub of northern Kenya and Ethiopia, and it is endangered: only a few thousand are left in the wild.
• Watch Animal Grey crowned crane The grey crowned crane is a gray African crane with a spiky crown of golden feathers, white and red cheeks and a red throat pouch. It is one of only two cranes that can perch in trees. It is the national bird of Uganda, and it is Endangered because its wetlands are disappearing.
• Watch Animal Ground pangolin The ground pangolin is a shy African mammal covered in overlapping scales. It sniffs out ants and termites at night and licks them up with a long, sticky tongue. Pangolins are in trouble because people take them illegally, and many people are working to protect them.
• Watch Animal Honey badger The honey badger, or ratel, is a stocky member of the weasel family that lives across Africa, the Middle East and India. Its gray or white back and black underside make it easy to spot. It digs with huge front claws, travels far to find food, and breaks into bees' nests for honey and bee grubs.
• Watch Animal Impala The impala is a slender, reddish-brown antelope of the savannas of eastern and southern Africa. It can both graze on grass and browse on leaves, lives in herds, and when startled the whole herd bursts into spectacular leaps. Only males have the long, curving horns.
• Watch 3D Animal Leopard The leopard is a strong, spotted big cat and the best climber of them all. It can carry its food high up into a tree, away from lions and hyenas. Leopards live in more kinds of places than any other big cat, from deserts to rainforests, across Africa and Asia.
• Watch Animal Lilac-breasted roller The lilac-breasted roller is a dazzling bird of the open woodlands and savannas of eastern and southern Africa. It sits on high perches watching for insects, swoops down to catch them, and gets its name from the rolling, tumbling flights it makes in the breeding season.
• Watch 3D Animal Lion The lion is the only big cat that lives in a family group, called a pride. Lionesses hunt together, males guard the pride's land, and their roar can be heard about 8 kilometers away. Wild lions live in Africa, plus one small group in western India.
• Watch Animal Meerkat Meerkats are small members of the mongoose family that live in dry, open country in southern Africa. They live in groups called mobs, dig for insects all day, and take turns as lookouts, standing tall and calling out if an eagle or jackal comes near. Everyone helps raise the babies.
• Watch Animal Naked mole-rat Naked mole-rats are almost hairless rodents that spend their whole lives in tunnels under the dry lands of eastern Africa. They live in big colonies where only one female, the queen, has babies, and they can live for around 30 years.
• Watch Animal Nile crocodile The Nile crocodile is Africa's largest crocodile. It lives in rivers, lakes and swamps across much of eastern, central and southern Africa and Madagascar. It eats mostly fish, basks on sunny banks and is a surprisingly caring parent.
• Watch Animal Plains zebra Plains zebras are striped members of the horse family that graze on the grasslands of eastern and southern Africa. They live in close family groups, travel long distances to find fresh grass and water, and every zebra's stripes are different.
• Watch Animal Secretarybird The secretarybird is a bird of prey that hunts on foot. It strides across the African savanna on the longest legs of any raptor, walking 20 to 30 kilometers a day, and stamps on grasshoppers, mice, lizards and even snakes with lightning-fast kicks.
• Watch 3D Animal Serval The serval is a slender wild cat of African grasslands and wetlands. Its huge ears can hear mice moving in tall grass, and its long legs let it leap high into the air to pounce on them or snatch a bird.
• Watch Animal Sociable weaver The sociable weaver is a sparrow-sized bird of the dry savannas of southern Africa. Whole colonies, sometimes hundreds of birds, build and share one enormous thatched nest with many separate rooms. It is among the largest nests built by any bird.
• Watch 3D Animal Spotted hyena The spotted hyena is the largest of the hyenas and a skilled hunter of the African savanna. Many people think hyenas only eat leftovers, but in East and Southern Africa they catch most of their own food. They live in big clans led by females, and they whoop, groan and 'giggle' to talk.
• Watch Animal White rhinoceros The white rhinoceros is the largest rhino and one of the biggest animals on land. It is not really white: its name may come from its wide, square lips, perfect for mowing grass. Careful protection has brought it back from the edge.