Animals of Africa
Africa is home to one of the richest and most spectacular faunas on Earth. Nowhere else do so many large mammals live side by side as on the African savanna. But behind the impressive spectacle of the Serengeti lies a stubborn reality: climate change, habitat loss and poaching are putting more and more species under pressure.
Three major habitats
The wildlife of Africa is closely linked to the climate of the continent. Three main habitat types dominate the fauna picture.
The savanna
The African savanna — a vast plain of grass and scattered trees stretching from West Africa through the Sahel to East and Southern Africa — is the stage for the famous Big Five: the lion, the African elephant, the Cape buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros. The name dates from the hunting era, when those five were considered the most dangerous animals to track on foot. Today the Serengeti in Tanzania draws more than a million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles in the greatest land-animal migration on Earth each year.
The savanna is also home to the giraffe, the tallest land animal on Earth, which uses its long neck to reach leaves that are out of reach for competitors. Cheetahs — the fastest land animals (up to 112 km/h over a short distance) — use the open plains to chase prey in daylight. The hippopotamus spends the day in rivers and lakes to avoid overheating; at night it grazes on grassland.
The Congo Rainforest
The Congo Basin in Central Africa contains the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, after the Amazon in South America. This rainforest is the habitat of two gorilla species: the western lowland gorilla and the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), whose population in the Virunga volcanoes and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda and Rwanda numbers only a small group. The mountain gorilla is listed on the IUCN Red List as Endangered.
In the same forest live bonobos and chimpanzees, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. The okapi, a relative of the giraffe with zebra stripes on its hindquarters, is endemic to the Congo Basin. Tens of thousands of insect species, including spectacular butterflies and beetles, fill the rich understories of the forest.
Desert and semi-desert
The Sahara and the Kalahari impose high demands on their inhabitants. The dromedary (one-humped camel) has adapted to extreme heat and drought; its hump stores fat, not water, as is often believed. The fennec fox (Vulpes zerda) has enormous ears to dissipate heat and to hunt at night. Snakes such as the Cerastes viper and the Saharan horned viper move in a sidewinding motion across the sand.
In the Kalahari, meerkats live in organised groups with a complex sentinel system. The brown hyena and the spotted hyena are omnivores that survive even in arid areas. The bat-eared fox and the aardwolf — an insect-eating relative of the hyena — fill ecological niches in that dry landscape.
The Big Five and other iconic species
The table below shows the most well-known African animal species with their habitat and IUCN conservation status (source: IUCN Red List 2024). Compare also the animals of Asia for a different perspective on threatened large mammals.
| Animal | Habitat | IUCN status |
|---|---|---|
| African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) | Savanna, sub-Saharan Africa | Endangered (EN) |
| Lion (Panthera leo) | Savanna, dry woodland, East and Southern Africa | Vulnerable (VU) |
| Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei) | Mountain rainforest, DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda | Endangered (EN) |
| Black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) | Shrubland, East and Southern Africa | Critically Endangered (CR) |
| Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) | Savanna, open woodland, sub-Saharan Africa | Vulnerable (VU) |
| Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) | Open savanna, East and Southern Africa | Vulnerable (VU) |
| Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) | Rivers and lakes, sub-Saharan Africa | Vulnerable (VU) |
| Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) | Tropical rainforest, West and Central Africa | Endangered (EN) |
| African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) | Savanna, East and Southern Africa | Endangered (EN) |
| Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) | Savanna and grassland, sub-Saharan Africa | Least Concern (LC) |
| Leopard (Panthera pardus) | Diverse habitats, widely distributed in Africa | Vulnerable (VU) |
Source: IUCN Red List 2024. CR = Critically Endangered; EN = Endangered; VU = Vulnerable; LC = Least Concern.
Threats and conservation
Poaching is the biggest direct threat to many African species. Rhinoceroses are killed for their horns, which are traded as medicine in parts of Asia — despite the lack of scientific evidence for their effectiveness. Elephants are targeted for ivory. In 2016 Africa had an estimated 415,000 savanna elephants, a decline of 30% in ten years (IUCN/African Elephant Specialist Group).
Habitat loss plays an equally large role. Agricultural expansion, illegal logging and human population growth continuously shrink the available habitat. The 54 countries of Africa work together on protected areas and transboundary reserves. The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), spanning five countries, is at over 520,000 km² the largest protected land area in the world.
Bird diversity and freshwater fish
Africa has more than 2,300 bird species — well over a quarter of all bird species on Earth. The African ostrich (Struthio camelus) is the largest living bird and can run at more than 70 km/h. The African kingfisher, the lilac-breasted roller and the flamingo are other iconic species. Flamingos gather at soda lakes such as Lake Nakuru in Kenya in colonies of sometimes more than a million individuals.
The freshwater fish of Africa are also exceptionally diverse. Lake Victoria once contained more than 500 endemic cichlid species, of which more than 200 went extinct after the introduction of the Nile perch in the 1950s — one of the largest human-caused extinction events in recent history. That lesson underlines how vulnerable even large ecosystems are to small interventions. More on animals by continent is in the section for kids.
Sources
- IUCN Red List 2024 — conservation statuses for all species mentioned
- African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) / IUCN — savanna elephant counts 2016
- UN World Population Prospects 2024 — contextual population figures
- WWF — habitat data and conservation programmes