An umbrella thorn silhouetted by the setting sun near Seronera Camp.
Map of Tanzania showing the country's national parks, including the Serengeti National Park.

The Serengeti (/ˌsɛrənˈɡɛti/ SERR-ən-GHET-ee) ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa, spanning the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania.[1] The protected area within the region includes approximately 30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi) of land, including the Serengeti National Park and several game reserves.[2] The Serengeti hosts the second[3] largest terrestrial mammal migration in the world, which helps secure it as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa.[4]

The Serengeti is also renowned for its large lion population and is one of the best places to observe prides in their natural environment.[5] Approximately 70 large mammal and 500 bird species are found there. This high diversity is a function of diverse habitats, including riverine forests, swamps, kopjes, grasslands, and woodlands. Blue wildebeest, gazelles, zebras, and buffalos are some of the commonly found large mammals in the region. [6]

The Serengeti also contains the Serengeti District of Tanzania.

The name "Serengeti" is often said to be derived from the word "seringit" in the Maasai language, Maa, meaning "endless plains".[1][7] However, this etymology does not appear in Maa dictionaries.[8][9]

History

For eons, Serengeti was sparsely inhabited as species of African wildlife have roamed freely across the vast rolling plains. However, this changed when nomadic pastoralists of the Maasai began to migrate to the area in the early 19th century.

They were hurt by drought and disease. Thousands died in the 1880s from a cholera epidemic and in 1892 from smallpox. Rinderpest (a bovine viral disease) then wiped out the cattle which were their possessions.[10] Later in the 20th century the Tanzanian government re-settled the Maasai around the Ngorongoro Crater. Poaching, and the absence of fires (which had been caused by humans), allowed dense woodlands and thickets to develop over the next 30–50 years. Tsetse fly populations now prevented any significant human settlement in the area.

By the mid-1970s, wildebeest and Cape buffalo populations had recovered and were increasingly cropping the grass, reducing the amount of fuel available for fires.[11] The reduced intensity of fires has allowed acacia to once again become established.[12]

In the 21st century, mass rabies vaccination programmes for domestic dogs in the Serengeti have not only indirectly prevented hundreds of human deaths, but also protected wildlife species such as the endangered African wild dog.[13]

Great migration

Migrating wildebeest.
Wildebeest crossing the river during the Serengeti migration.

Each year around the same time, the circular great wildebeest migration begins in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania and loops clockwise through the Serengeti National Park and north towards the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya.[14] This migration is naturally caused, by the availability of grazing. The initial phase lasts from about January to March, when the calving season begins – a time when there is plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 260,000 zebras that precede 1.7 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game, including around 470,000 gazelles.[15][16][17]

During February, the wildebeest are on the short grass plains of the southeast part of the ecosystem, grazing and giving birth to approximately 500,000 calves in 2 to 3 weeks. Few calves are born ahead of time and of these, hardly any survive, largely because very young calves are more noticeable to predators when mixed with older calves from the previous year. As the rains end in May, the animals start moving northwest into the areas around the Grumeti River, where they typically remain until late June. The crossings of the Grumeti and Mara rivers beginning in July are a popular safari attraction because crocodiles are lying in wait.[15] The herds arrive in Kenya in late July / August, where they stay for the rest of the dry season, except that the Thomson's and Grant's gazelles move only east/west. In early November, with the start of the short rains, the migration starts moving south again, to the short grass plains of the southeast, usually arriving in December in plenty of time for calving in February.[18]

About 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southwestern Kenya, a total of 800 kilometres (500 mi). Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation, including by big cats.[19]

Ecology

River and the Serengeti plains.

The Serengeti has some of East Africa's finest game areas.[20] Besides being known for the great migration, the Serengeti is also famous for its abundant large predators. The ecosystem is home to over 3,000 lions, 1,000 African leopards,[21] and 7,700 to 8,700 spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).[22] The East African cheetah are also present in Serengeti.[23]

African wild dogs are relatively scarce in much of the Serengeti. This is particularly true in places such as Serengeti National Park (where they became extinct in 1992), in which lions and spotted hyenas, predators that steal wild dog kills and are a direct cause of wild dog mortality, are abundant.[24]

The Serengeti is also home to a diversity of grazers, including Cape buffalo, African elephant, warthog, Grant's gazelle, eland, waterbuck, and topi. The Serengeti can support this remarkable variety of grazers only because each species, even those closely related, has a different diet. For example, wildebeests prefer to consume shorter grasses, while plains zebras prefer taller grasses. Similarly, dik-diks eat the lowest leaves of a tree, impalas eat the leaves that are higher up, and giraffes eat leaves that are even higher.

Giraffes in Eastern Serengeti.

The governments of Tanzania and Kenya maintain a number of protected areas, including national parks, conservation areas, and game reserves, that give legal protection to over 80 percent of the Serengeti.[25]

Near Lake Victoria, floodplains have developed from ancient lakebeds.

In the far northwest, acacia woodlands are replaced by broadleaved Terminalia-Combretum woodlands, caused by a change in geology. This area has the highest rainfall in the system and forms a refuge for the migrating ungulates at the end of the dry season.[26][27]

Lioness on a kopje, or rock outcropping.

Altitudes in the Serengeti range from 920 to 1,850 metres (3,020 to 6,070 ft) with mean temperatures varying from 15 to 25 °C (59 to 77 °F). Although the climate is usually warm and dry, rainfall occurs in two rainy seasons: March to May, and a shorter season in October and November. Rainfall amounts vary from a low of 508 millimetres (20 in) in the lee of the Ngorongoro highlands to a high of 1,200 millimetres (47 in) on the shores of Lake Victoria.[28]

The area is also home to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which contains Ngorongoro Crater and the Olduvai Gorge, where some of the oldest hominin fossils have been found.[29]

In media

  • In 1993, soft rock artist Dan Fogelberg recorded a song titled "Serengeti Moon" for his studio album River of Souls. It is an African-themed love song about a couple making love underneath the Serengeti moon.
  • Canadian guitarist Sonny Greenwich recorded a song titled "Serengeti" on his 1994 album Hymn to the Earth with vocals by Ernie Nelson.
  • Serengeti, a six-episode BBC series, chronicles the life of some of the animals in the Serengeti.[30]
  • The 1982 song "Africa" by the American rock band Toto, originally released on their album Toto IV, includes a reference to the Serengeti.[31] The song inaccurately describes Mount Kilimanjaro as "ris(ing) like Olympus above the Serengeti"; Kilimanjaro is actually located hundreds of miles to the east of the Serengeti.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Zimmermann, Kim Ann (23 June 2017). "The Serengeti: Plain Facts about National Park & Animals". Live Science.
  2. ↑ Schmaltz, Jeff (9 January 2006). "Serengeti". NASA: Visible Earth.
  3. ↑ "Serengeti National Park | Location, Facts, & Animals | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  4. ↑ Sharaf, Yasir (4 June 2017). "The Serengeti Migration | Seven Natural Wonders of Africa". XPATS International. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  5. ↑ Nolting, Mark (2012). Africa's Top Wildlife Countries. Global Travel Publishers Inc. p. 356. ISBN 978-0939895151.
  6. ↑ "serengeti". rutastanzania.viajes - ES (in European Spanish).
  7. ↑ Briggs, Phillip (2006), Northern Tanzania: The Bradt Safari Guide with Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, Bradt Travel Guides, p. 198, ISBN 978-1-84162-146-3
  8. ↑ Richmond, Charles (1940). "Maasai Dictionary". Archives & Reprint Series (Imprint).
  9. ↑ Payne, Doris L.; Ole-Kotikash, Leonard (eds.). "Maa (Maasai) Dictionary".
  10. ↑ "Serengeti, Heartbreak on the Serengeti". archive.ph. National Geographic Magazine. 29 June 2012. Archived from the original on 29 June 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  11. ↑ Morell, Virginia (1997), "Return of the Forest", Science, 278 (5346): 2059, doi:10.1126/science.278.5346.2059, S2CID 128520518
  12. ↑ Sinclair, Anthony Ronald Entrican; Arcese, Peter, eds. (1995). Serengeti II: Dynamics, Management, and Conservation of an Ecosystem. University of Chicago Press. pp. 73–76. ISBN 978-0-226-76032-2. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  13. ↑ "Trevor Blackburn Award 2008" (PDF). British Veterinary Association. September 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 January 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  14. ↑ "The Great Wildebeest Migration: Exploring Africa's biggest wildlife phenomenon". 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. 1 2 Anouk Zijlma. "The Great Annual Wildlife Migration – The Great Migration of Wildebeest and Zebra". About.com. Archived from the original on 28 March 2017. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  16. ↑ "How to Get There, Ngorongoro Crater". Ngorongoro Crater Tanzania. 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  17. ↑ "Ngorongoro Conservation Area". United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  18. ↑ Croze, Harvey; Mari, Carlo; Estes, Richard D. (2000). Serengeti's Great Migration. Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-0-789-20669-5.
  19. ↑ Partridge, Frank (20 May 2006). "The fast show". The Independent (London). Archived from the original on 19 December 2007. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
  20. ↑ Pavitt, Nigel (2001), Africa's Great Rift Valley, Harry N. Abrams, p. 122, ISBN 978-0-8109-0602-0
  21. ↑ "Cheetahs on the Edge - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine". ngm.nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on 28 October 2012. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  22. ↑ "Mpala Live! Field Guide: Spotted Hyena | MpalaLive". mpalalive.org. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  23. ↑ "Cheetahs in Tanzania". Expert Africa. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  24. ↑ Angier, Natalie (11 August 2014). "African Wild Dogs, True Best Friends". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  25. ↑ Kideghesho, Jafari R. (September 2010). "'Serengeti Shall Not Die': Transforming an Ambition into a Reality". Tropical Conservation Science. 3 (3): 228–247. doi:10.1177/194008291000300301. S2CID 87914905.
  26. ↑ Sinclair, A. R. E.; Mduma, Simon A. R.; Fryxell, John M. (2008), Serengeti III: Human Impacts on Ecosystem Dynamics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 11, ISBN 978-0-226-76033-9
  27. ↑ Sinclair, A. R. E.; Mduma, S. A.; Hopcraft, J. G.; Fryxell, J. M.; Hilborn, R.; Thirgood, S. (2007), "Long-Term Ecosystem Dynamics in the Serengeti: Lessons for Conservation" (PDF), Conservation Biology, 21 (3): 580–590, doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00699.x, PMID 17531037, S2CID 41391403, archived from the original (PDF) on 22 November 2010
  28. ↑ "The Serengeti National Park". Glcom.com. Retrieved 23 October 2010.
  29. ↑ Leslea J. Hlusko; Whitney B. Reiner; Jackson K. Njau (8 June 2015). "A one-million-year-old hominid distal ulna from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 158 (1): 36–42. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22765. PMID 26058378.
  30. ↑ Nicholson, Rebecca (4 July 2019). "Serengeti review – the Made in Chelsea of nature documentary". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 April 2020.
  31. ↑ Toto – Africa, retrieved 11 November 2023
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