Your wildlife experience in Tanzania, Africa

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The Ngorongoro Crater


The Crater is a 19km x 21km Crater with in the much larger, Ngorongoro Conservation Reserve, it has a very unique eco system.

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Although being direct neighbors to the Serengeti z(the serengeti begins on the upper left just outside the white line), it is at least 10 degrees colder, much greener year round and the soil is rich with volcanic nutrients not found elsewhere.

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Now to the info on animal size...

In the crater the soil is rich with minerals, which means the animals that eat the plants grown from the mineral rich soil are healthy, possibly more healthy than anywhere else.
How is this shown?

Elephants: Male Elephants in the crater are noticeably bigger and their Tusks are much more dense. They are much harder to spot though, I saw the female group in the denser forest portion of the crater and they didn't appear any larger but elephants travel in all shapes and sizes, usually there are only a few full grown adults and the rest are a bit younger from what I've seen.

Cape Buffalo: Although they were a bit further off, I could see the male group looked very healthy and large, at least as large as any I saw in the serengeti.

Zebra and Wildabeast: These are the most abundant prey species for lion and to me they didn't seem any larger or smaller compared to else where.

Now onto Lions: Lions that I saw in the crater were a coalition of 5 3.5 year old males on a buffalo cow kill and 3 lioness drinking water then possibly waiting to start hunting but we didn't get to stay long enough to see.
The lioness I saw were no larger than else where and the young males where healthy, but not larger than lions I saw in the serengeti. That being said, I asked my guide about this. If any one is qualified to speak on it, he is. He worked in the crater for 5 years and has been a guide for 10 plus, he said and I quote "lions are mostly the same size throughout africa, some are big and some are smaller, but the largest lion I have ever seen in my life was from the Crater." he also said "in the crater, lions manes are a bit longer and they usually cover the shoulder (he says that very rarely do manes cover the shoulder and its a sign that they are the healthiest when their shoulder is covered.)"
What I took away from that is this... The crater will breed the best of the best, if your genetic makeup means that you'll be a healthy creature in the serengeti, the Crater offers you the opportunity to be even healthier than elsewhere which in turn means that the freak specimens may be even more noticeable in the crater.
Another thing to note that is unique about the crater is this, inside the crater you have between 4-5 different lion prides but something is odd about these ones, they don't live by the territorial code as we are accustomed to seeing in lions. This prides will travel freely through each others territories with no sign of aggression towards one another.

Now, onto the photos from the Crater

The first animal we encountered in the crater was this healthy male warthog

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as we begin our journey, Zebra are the first to greet and your breath is taken away from the sights of the craters landscape

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Notice a juvenile will still have a bit of brown in its coat

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Wildabeast and Zebra together which is very usually, they seem to enjoy each others company. 

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This was the first Male elephant we saw, he was far off but his size was immense and check out those Tusks!

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This was the 2nd Bull we saw on the other side of the Crater near the Hippo Pool. This guy was as large as the other one, but check out is tusk. Like I was saying, elephant are "right or left handed" you'll usually see one tusk more worn than the other.

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Same bull with some friends... Largest Land Mammal on earth and the Largest Bird on earth.
Not a bad shot

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These bachelor capes were just outside of the shot off to the east of the elephant and ostrich.

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It's ostrich breeding season right now and this guy was being pushed off by another male ostrich that was claiming his female. They are beautiful up close and those talons are no joke!

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In the crater they have a pool filled with Hippo, its quite famous for sightings and I spotted this mother and calf leaving one pool that was getting a bit to aggressive and was taking him to other side where it was a bit calmer. To see hippos outside of the water during the day is very rare and I was super proud to spot her and snap a few shots before she disappeared back into the pool.

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Now onto the Lions


This was the coalition of 5 males on the buffalo cow kill, they had already eaten their fill and were being lazy, I was able to snap a few full bodies though so you guys could compare. They had between 5-8 hyena around but the hyena were patiently waiting, they dare not challenge these boys.

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Here you can see them with a hyena in the frame

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