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warm blood extracted from the neck of a live cow
and mixed with milk as an iron rich food.
ANIMALS
AND BIRDS
The
'lost world' of Ngorongoro was home to pigs the
size of a hippopotamus, sheep-like beasts with
6-foot (3 metre) horns and three-toed horses.
Nowadays is inhabited by about 30,000 animals,
of which half are zebra and wildebeest. This is
the perfect situation for predators and spotted
hyenas and lions lord over this domain. There
are also some leopards, cheetahs and three species
of jackals. Tanzania's few remaining black rhino
are regularly sighted in the crater, as are large
herds of buffalo.
In the lake on the crater floor
and in the Ngoitokitok swamps, reside plenty of
hippos who remain partially submerged during the
day and graze on grass at night.
Although the area sustains a huge
variety of species, not all live down in the crater.
Some are better adapted to roaming the extensive
conservation area surrounding the caldera.
Elephant herds are noticeably
absent from the crater floor because the cows
and calves tend to prefer the forested highlands.
They sometimes appear at the crater rim but only
rarely venture down into the grasslands. Only
mature bull elephants roam the crater floor carrying
around some massive tusks. Also absent from the
crater are impala, topi and oryx who reside more
on the eastern Serengeti plains, but Grant's and
Thompson's gazelles appear in the crater in good
numbers. Giraffes are also missing from the crater
as they favour the umbrella acacia and wait-a-bit
thorn trees found higher up.
The salt-whitened shores of Lake
Magadi are turned a pastel pink from thousands
of flamingoes sifting algae and shrimps from this
soda lake. The lake also attracts a myriad other
water birds including avocets, plovers and black-winged
stilts whose long beaks probe the soft mud.
SEASONS
As
the rim of the crater is 333 feet (2,235m) above
sea level it is cooler at the top than down on
the crater floor, where it can get extremely hot.
Rainy Season: Short rains are
November and December when it gets hot and humid,
and the long rains are from March to May.
Dry Season: typically it is dry
from June to October and it can get quite cold
during these months on the rim of the crater.
NGORONGORO
SPECIALITIES
• Plains teeming with grazing animals
• Dark maned lions
• Clans of spotted hyena
• Black rhino
FACTS
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area varies in altitude
from 3,315-11,628 feet (1,020-3,578m) above sea
level
This is a malarial area
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