Big Five is an increasingly well-known term among safari and animal lovers, which, however, has a less than happy origin, which even today turns out to be no small problem for African animals. The term Big Five, in fact, is used in Africa to identify the five largest animals on the African continent. The term Big 5 refers not only to the size and scale of the animal, but to the difficulty of hunting and killing it.
This is an increasingly used term, especially by those who organize safaris in African parks, in lands such as Tanzania and Zimbabwe. So let’s find out the origin of the term Big Five, the big five, and what animals belong to this group.
Origin of the term Big Five
Big Five began to be used in South Africa, mainly in South African parks where settlers went hunting. In fact, the origin of the term comes from a sad custom with the name Big Five Game, or big five game. In reality this was anything but a game.
The Big Five Game was a kind of competition, a personal contest and challenge among hunters, who competed to see who could kill all the most dangerous animals in Africa and then decorate their homes with hunting trophies. The Big Five Game was a real boast, and a great many would head to the lands of South Africa, where there was an abundance of those animals, to try to kill them.
Originally born in the parks of South Africa, where the animals were easier to find, the term spread throughout Africa, mainly to parks in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Kenya.
Big Seven
Some time after the use of the term “big five” became established, the term Big Seven also appeared, expanding the list of larger, harder-to-hunt animals with the whale and white shark. There is only one place in the world where all seven animals can be found, and that is one of the park sites where it all began, namely South Africa. The reserve is called Addo Elephant National Park, one of the largest parks in South Africa.
What are the Big Five animals
The animals of the big five are the elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, and black rhino. These are some of the most distinctive animals in African wildlife, as well as one of the most important reasons why thousands of visitors each year experience safaris in Tanzania and throughout Africa..
Elephant
The first animal on the list is obviously the Africanelephant, or African loxodonta, the world’s largest land mammal. This splendid animal, characterized by its enormous size, which can reach as much as 6-6. 5m in length and a height at the withers of about 3.2 to 3.5m, weighing from 3800 to 5100 kg, has been one of the most hunted and still today many poachers try to kill them, so as to recover the ivory that makes up their tusks, a material of great value.
Lion
The Big Five could hardly miss the King of the Savannah, namely the African lion. This species of Panthera Leo is known by many different names, such as African, Maasai (from the Maasai people) and East African lion, and is the most majestic feline in all of Africa, as well as the second largest feline in size, after the tiger. The African Lion is larger than its Asian cousin and can reach a height at the withers of as much as 120 cm, and a length of up to 3 meters.
In the Savannah, lions are known to be the most dangerous predators, feeding on zebra, antelope, wildebeest and buffalo.
Leopard
Right after the lion, the leopard could hardly be missed, a super predator that despite its very light weight, just 60 kg, is capable of making most African animals shiver. The leopard is known for its spotted coat, which can also come in the form of a completely black coat.
Black-coated leopard specimens are known as panthers, which, contrary to popular belief, are not a different species but the same.
Buffalo
The Black Buffalo is known by many other names, such as Cafro, African or Cape, and is one of the few animals in the world that can defend itself even against lions, the most dangerous predators in the Savannah. The Cafro Buffalo is one of the largest cattle in the world and can boast of indescribable strength and mighty horns that can drive away even the fiercest predators.
Black Rhinoceros
Last of the big five is the black rhinoceros, Diceros Bicornis, the most dangerous and violent animal there is. The Big Five Game involved hunting and killing black rhino specimens, but this turned out to be quite complex since the black and white species differ in imperceptible details.
The rhinoceros has been one of the animals to be most affected by hunting, and specimens have been drastically reduced. For this very reason, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the rhino as a threatened species in critical status, dangerously endangered.
