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.

These con­spi­cuous mon­keys from the group of lemurs are at home in the rain­fo­rest of Mada­gas­car. They are con­s­i­de­red criti­cally end­an­ge­red due to hun­ting and are sub­ject to the stric­test pro­tec­tive regu­la­ti­ons. Black-and white-ruf­fed lemurs, also known as Varis, love to take long sun­baths in the early mor­ning hours. The nati­ves have obser­ved this beha­vior and the­re­fore belie­ved that they worship the sun and thus they were decla­red sac­red ani­mals by them.

This beau­ti­ful, medium-sized ante­lope with ele­gantly cur­ved horns can run up to 80 km/h! She lives in the open land­s­ca­pes of India, Nepal and Pakis­tan, where she can­not pre­vent a thi­cket from run­ning and jum­ping. The black­buck or Indian ante­lope is socia­ble. The ani­mals are in herds with 15 to 50 mem­bers toge­ther. Every herd has a lea­der.

The water hog is the lar­gest rodent on earth. It is a mam­mal of the gui­nea pig family (Cavi­i­dae). The Gua­rani Indi­ans call it Capy­bara, which means “Lord of the grass”. It lives in South Ame­rica (Panama, Colom­bia, Vene­zuela) and looks like a very large pig. Capy­ba­ras are up to 130 inches long, and their shoul­der height rea­ches up to 60 centi­me­ters. The fema­les grow slightly lar­ger than the males.

The Cen­tral Ame­ri­can Agouti belongs to the rodent family and is a rela­tive of the gui­nea pig. Its dis­tri­bu­tion ran­ges from Chia­pas in Sou­thern Mexico, through Cen­tral Ame­rica, to Colom­bia, Ecua­dor and far wes­tern Vene­zuela. Agou­tis are a diur­nal spe­cies and live in mono­ga­mous pairs. They are found in rain­fo­rests, sav­an­nas, cul­ti­va­ted areas and thick brush, and mainly feed on fruits and seeds. They are important for dis­per­sing seeds of plants.

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.

You are right in front of our 3,000 square meter green island for our chim­pan­zees – our clo­sest rela­ti­ves in the ani­mal king­dom. This is loca­ted in the Ambo­seli Schim­pan­sen Reser­vat. Since chim­pan­zees can­not swim, the natu­ral limi­ta­tion of the moat is com­p­le­tely suf­fi­ci­ent. The rocks, tree trunks, clim­bing ropes and the many gre­ens offer our chim­pan­zees a lot of variety. The island is so exten­sive that young ani­mals spend many weeks on their mother’s back to get to know their sur­roun­dings. You can watch the chim­pan­zees search for hid­den food that the kee­pers hid for them in a variety of places.

The family of the mar­mo­sets inclu­des the Liszt mon­keys, also known as the Cot­ton-top Tama­rin. They have their name in refe­rence to the com­po­ser Franz Liszt, who at the time was wea­ring an idio­syn­c­ratic hair­style. These mon­keys have a wild white head of hair, the mane grows deep into the middle of the forehead, howe­ver the face is black, as are the ears. In the wild, they are pre­do­mi­n­ant in northwes­tern Colom­bia. Since their habi­tat is very limi­ted and threa­te­ned by defo­re­sta­tion, they are clas­si­fied by the World Con­ser­va­tion Union, IUCN, as criti­cally end­an­ge­red!

Goats belong to the family of horn-bea­rers. For most goat breeds, both sexes wear horns. Like the horns of ante­lopes and rhi­nos, they are made of kera­tin – just like our fin­ger­nails. More than 10,000 years ago, our today’s domestic goats were bred from the Bezoan-goat living in the Middle East. Goats serve pri­ma­rily as a meat, lea­ther and milk sup­p­lier. They are very fru­gal with food and ext­re­mely robust.