Ngorongoro Crater is a natural amphitheatre, created about 2 million years ago as a 259 km² caldera as a result of the collapse of a large volcano. This caldera, protected by a 610-meter solid circular rim, has everything necessary for the existence and prosperity of African wildlife.
According to agooddir, Ngorongoro is located in the northern part of Tanzania and receives many tourists who are accommodated in lodges located around the crater. Special safari vehicles descend the steep sides of the crater every morning and spend the day on grassy plains teeming with wildlife. However, night time belongs to the animals, and all vehicles are required to leave the crater floor at sunset.
Ancient people also flourished here in the Olduvai Gorge region, near the Ngorongoro Crater. This is known because in 1960 Mary Leakey discovered a 1,750,000 year old Homo habilis (homo habilis, nicknamed “jack of all trades” due to his skill in making various tools), which represents the first step on the ladder of human evolution.
The Maasai are the current inhabitants of these areas, and they are free to live within the sprawling protected area around the crater, which currently measures 6480 km². The Maasai never cultivate the land, as they consider it humiliating. Instead, they herd livestock, which has a god-like status in Masai culture. In return, cows provide the Maasai with almost everything they need to live: meat, milk, manure for the walls and floors of their huts, and warm blood taken 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 hippo-sized pigs, sheep-like beasts with three-meter horns, and three-toed horses. Today it is inhabited by more than 30,000 animals, half of which are zebras and wildebeests. This is the ideal state of affairs for predators and spotted hyenas, and these territories are ruled by lions. Also here you can see leopards, cheetahs and three types of jackals. Black rhinoceroses, of which there are very few left in Tanzania, as well as large herds of buffalo are regularly found in the crater.
The lake at the bottom of the crater and the swampy area of Ngoitokitok are home to many hippos that remain partially submerged during the day and graze on the grass at night.
Although this area supports a huge variety of species, not all of them live at the bottom of the crater. Some are better equipped to navigate the vast nature reserve that surrounds the caldera.
Elephant herds are conspicuously absent from the crater floor because they tend to prefer wooded uplands. Sometimes they appear on the edge of the crater, but very rarely go down. Only mature male elephants, carrying huge massive tusks, sometimes roam the bottom. Also, there are no impalas, topis and oryxes that live on the eastern plains of the Serengeti, but Thompson’s gazelles and Grant’s gazelles are found in the crater in large numbers. There are no giraffes in the crater either, because they love the umbrella acacia and thorny trees that grow a little higher.
The salt-white shores of Lake Magadi appear pastel pink as thousands of flamingos look out for algae and shrimp in this soda lake. The lake also attracts myriads of other waterfowl, including avocets, plovers and stilters, whose long beaks explore the soft mud at the bottom.
SEASONS
Due to the fact that the rim of the crater rises to 2235 m above sea level, it is colder at the top than at the bottom at the bottom of the crater, where it can be very hot.
Rainy season: short rains occur in November and December when it gets hot and humid, and long rains come from March to May.
Dry Season: Generally dry between June and October, during these months it can get quite cold at the rim of the crater.
FEATURES OF NGORONGORO
- The plains are teeming with grazing animals
- Lions with dark manes
- Spotted hyena clans
- black rhinoceros
DATA
Altitudes in the Ngorongoro Protected Area range from 1020 to 3578 m above sea level.
This is a malaria zone.
