Animals in Africa

　　Africa is home to the "Big Five". They are known as these as they were seen as the best animals to hunt and return home with. The "Big Five" are African elephants, rhinoceroses, leopards, Cape buffalos and lions.

　　Elephants: Large mammals with a long trunks that serve as snorkels, drinking straws, squirt-guns, trumpets, and feeding tools which are powerful enough to rip branches from trees but skilful enough to pick up a pea. They have huge, sail-like ears, a pair of tusks - that grow throughout the animal's entire lifetime, - and a ropy tail.

　　There are two types of elephants in Africa: Savannah Elephants which live widely around the south of the Sahara. The smallest Forest Elephants live in small groups in western Africa.

　　They live in rain forests to desert-like habitats, swamps, seashores, and edges of mountain forests.

　　Rhinoceroses: Are wide and powerfully built. They have a thick, dark grey hide, which is folded at points. Their upper lip is pointed and flexible. The rhino is a vegetarian. It eats more than 200 species of plants. It is unpredictable and as likely to charge at you as to run away if you disturb it. When charging a rhino can reach speeds of 30 miles per hour.

　　There are five species of rhinos, all of which are endangered. They can be seen in well-protected reserves in eastern and southern Africa.

　　They live in many different habitats, but usually live in dense woody vegetation and sometimes grasslands.

　　Leopards: One of the roaring cats. Their coat can be shades of yellow through a reddish brown, with some albino - though these are rare - and they have dark spots. They also often have a white tipped tail. The leopard is carnivorous and hunts a wide variety of prey, everything from insects and rodents up to large ungulates such as giraffe and buffalo calves.

　　There are twenty species of leopards - this depends on where the leopard lives.

They live across most of the African continent, with the exception of the Sahara Desert.