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The lar­gest land mam­mal on Earth. In the past, ele­phants were spread all over Africa, today you only find them from Sudan to South Africa. They live in sav­an­nas, bush step­pes, forests, wet­lands and moun­tain slopes. It is ama­zing how sen­si­ti­vely and skill­fully an Afri­can ele­phant can handle its trunk: it is easy for it to pick up objects. At the same time the trunk is also the smell and touch organ. Look clo­sely, it can be tur­ned in all direc­ti­ons, stret­ched and rol­led up. The ele­phant regu­la­tes its body tem­pe­ra­ture on hot days by waving its huge ears and coo­ling the many blood ves­sels that run through them.

The Amur Leo­pard is the rarest big cat on Earth! It used to be wide­s­p­read: you could find it in eas­tern Sibe­ria bet­ween North Korea and the Rus­sian Tun­dra. Nowa­days, it can only be found along the Amur River. Under 50 ani­mals live there, remai­ning the only free-living Amur leo­pards world­wide! The World Con­ser­va­tion Union, IUCN, has clas­si­fied the Amur leo­pard as criti­cally end­an­ge­red! Today, about 200 of these rare ani­mals live in zoos.

The King Tiger, also known as the Ben­gal tiger, is the most nume­rous tiger sub­s­pe­cies in Asia. This big cat ori­gi­nally came in nine sub­s­pe­cies. Some spe­cies are already extinct and all other tiger breeds are end­an­ge­red. Fort­u­na­tely, it has now been pos­si­ble to build bree­ding groups of Ben­gal tigers and suc­cess­fully mul­ti­ply this mag­ni­fi­cent big cat. Tigers are soli­tary, like all big cats except the lions and chee­tahs, and only come toge­ther during the mating sea­son.

The bison is also known as the “Indian buf­falo”. It is the only wild cattle and at the same time the most power­ful mam­mal of the Ame­ri­can con­ti­nent! Before Euro­pe­ans came to Ame­rica, there was a bil­lo­wing sea of grass – the great prai­rie that see­med end­lessly wide. This was the home of the bison. It is hard to ima­gine that almost 60 mil­lion of these mighty ani­mals lived here! For the Indi­ans, bison was vital: they lived off their flesh, made their clo­thes and tents from their skins, and tur­ned their horns into jewelry. They hun­ted only as many ani­mals as they nee­ded for their live­li­hood.

There are three types of zebras: Grevy’s zebra, moun­tain zebra and plains zebra. Chap­man’s zebra is a sub­s­pe­cies of the plains zebra and are varia­bly colo­red. Often, the back half of his torso is rather hori­zon­tally stri­ped, the dra­wing is also seen on the belly and there are often ligh­ter “sha­dow stri­pes” available. They live in family groups with a hier­ar­chy. Imme­dia­tely after the stal­lion, the lead mare comes with her foals, then the other fema­les come with their young. Alt­hough zebras seem to be quite simi­lar to hor­ses, they are dif­fe­rent. Zebras do not have strong bones, so they are not sui­ta­ble for riding. Like hor­ses, zebras are flight ani­mals, rea­ching up to 50 km/h. Please be atten­tive, because zebras have very strong teeth, it is seven times stron­ger than that of a horse!

The fas­test land ani­mal! The chee­tah is famous for its enor­mous speed, which can be rea­ched wit­hin a few seconds: 90-110 km/h is an easy task for this beau­ti­ful ani­mal! Howe­ver, the chee­tah can hold this speed only a few meters long and must thus focus on his prey quite accu­ra­tely during his sprint. His poten­tial prey, usually an ante­lope, only has a chance if the dis­tance is big enough. The chee­tah has trai­ned its body for this rapid and short hunt: He has non-retrac­ta­ble claws and is thus equip­ped for high speeds. Also striking is its black streak from the eyes to the snout.

Mar­vel at the ani­mals with the lon­gest eyelas­hes! These pro­tect the giraf­fes from injury they might get through twigs and thorns. Watch how ele­gant and exal­ted the giraf­fes are when they roam through our spraw­ling com­plex! They can reach up to speeds of 55 km / h! Giraf­fes are up to six meters and are thus the tal­lest ani­mals in the world. They live only in the Afri­can sav­an­nah. There are eight sub­s­pe­cies, which dif­fer in their coat dra­wing. Because of their phy­si­que and their fur pat­tern, it was once belie­ved that the giraffe was a cross bet­ween camel and leo­pard. Hence the giraffe bears the Latin name Giraffa came­lo­par­da­lis.

Lions are the second lar­gest cats in the world, next to tigers. Unlike other cats, they are very social ani­mals and live in groups cal­led “Pri­des”. In the past, lions were spread all over Africa, except for rain­fo­rests and the Sahara. Before and during the Ice Ages, they also inha­bi­ted all of Europe and large parts of Asia. Today there is a group in the Gir Natio­nal Park in Guja­rat (India) and still some popu­la­ti­ons south of the Sahara. In the Afri­can natio­nal parks, the lions are under com­p­lete pro­tec­tion. Thus, this spe­cies is con­s­i­de­red vul­ne­ra­ble.

Meer­kats belong to the family of mon­goo­ses, Her­pes­ti­dae. Like all mem­bers of this diur­nal group, they are car­ni­vo­res. Their food con­sists of almost 90% insects, but they can also cap­ture lizards, frogs, birds, scor­pi­ons and eggs. Meer­kats inha­bit the sav­an­nas and semi-deserts of sou­thern Africa, such as the Kala­hari Desert in Bots­wana and the Namib Desert in Nami­bia. They dig under­ground tun­nel sys­tems that can reach up to 3 meters into the ground. Up to 30 indi­vi­duals can live in a “clan”, but some super-fami­lies usually con­ta­ins about 50 or more mem­bers.

Ring-tai­led lemurs or Kat­tas is a pri­mate spe­cies from the group of lemurs. They live on the island of Mada­gas­car and are clas­si­fied as end­an­ge­red. They have a con­spi­cuous, rin­ged tail, with which they can balance well. The anci­ent Romans cal­led the evil spi­rits of the decea­sed “Lemu­res”. Of all lemurs, the Katta spends most of its time on the ground, which is an adapta­tion to the par­tially dry habi­tat.