Numbers

The Big Five Animals of African Safaris

There is no consensus on the animals that make up the Big Five.  One of the quotes below even discusses how the list has changed over the years as hunting has given way to photography for travelers to Africa.  The list that we have chosen to use is the more traditional one and also the one used by South Africa, which put an image of one of the Big Five animals on its banknotes (scroll down and on the right side of the page)—a rhinoceros on the 10 rand note; an elephant on the 20; a lion on the 50; a buffalo on the 100; and a leopard on the 200—as that seemed to be pretty definitive.  Other animals sometimes put on lists of the Big Five include cheetahs, giraffes, hippopotamuses, and zebras.

• Buffalo
• Elephant
• Leopard
• Lion
• Rhinoceros

How It's Used

“And the camp is so deep inside Lake Manyara National Park that over three days of game-driving we never saw another vehicle. It’s still home to the Big Five; looking for cheetah, leopard and tree-climbing lion, elephant, and rhino, I became such an avid tracker that our guide jokingly offered me a job.”

“It is a reasonable assumption that anyone interested enough in wildlife to be traveling on safari in Africa is also able to identify the more well known and spectacular African animals. For example an elephant (Loxodonta africana) or lion (Panthera leo) can hardly be confused with anything else, so they are not described in great detail here. It is indeed fortunate that many of the large and spectacular animals are also on the whole fairly common, so you will have a very good chance of seeing them on even a fairly short safari. They are often known as the Big Five. Unfortunately, no one agrees on quite which species constitute the Big Five!  The terms was originally coined by hunters who wanted to take home trophies of their safari. Thus it was that, in hunting parlance, the Big Five were elephant, black rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard. Nowadays the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is usually considered one of the Big Five for those who shoot with their cameras, whereas the buffalo is far less of a ‘trophy’. Equally photogenic and worthy to be included are the zebra, giraffe and cheetah.”

“I chatted at my banquet table with a retired pipe fitter from Idaho named Wilbur. He once played minor-league ball with Stan Musial and was incredulous about the recent auction of Mark McGwire’s seventieth home-run ball for $3 million.  ‘The guy’s got more money than sense,’ I agreed. But then, in the next breath, here’s old Wilbur himself talking about his life’s ambition to bring home the Big Five, which is going to run him a hundred grand at least unless he winds tonight’s ‘Hunt of a Lifetime’ raffle offering a Big Five safari (‘varmints included’)—the proceeds, at $250 a ticket, going to Safari Club’s PAC. They had sold 740 tickets when I inquired about it.”

“Of all the creatures that inhabited the forty-five thousand acres of Mala Mala—and that included the regal waterbuck and the brown snake eagle, the nimble klipspringer and the four-foot monitor lizard, as well as the majestic Big Five—the one that fascinated me most was Mike Rattray, the owner and driving force behind the reserve.”

“Just as tourists on safari in Africa hope to spot one of the ‘Big Five’ game animals, visitors to the Animal Kingdom look for Disney’s ‘Big Five’—Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy, the biggest celebrities in the Disney pantheon, and the most coveted autographs."

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