If you were given the chance to discover elephants, buffalo, leopard, lion, and rhino inside the caldera of a 3 million year old volcano - would you take it?

After a 40-minute drive, you'll arrive at the Ngorongoro Crater rim. It's an early start, you want to get to the crater early for the best wildlife and photography opportunities. En route, you'll spot zebra and other plains game.

Soon, the grasslands turn to mountain forest as you being the descent from the crater rim. Once you reach the bottom, you spend the day on a game drive around the 300km crater floor. You have the opportunity see the Big 5 and many roaming predators.

Wildlife at Ngorongoro >>

Variations in climate, landforms, and altitude produce a range of habitats that can support a variety of wildlife, and has led to a network of overlapping ecosystems.

The crater basin is covered with fresh water and alkaline lakes, marshes and swamps. These alkaline lakes attract flamingos, which number in their thousands during the wet season.

The crater is home to some 30,000 animals, some of which migrate here during the Great Migration, and others that stay here year-round.

The rich, volcanic, fertile soil of the crater hosts plenty of wildlife in the dry season, including warthog, impala, and buffalo. These prey in turn attract predators, including lions, hyena, cheetah, leopard, wild hunting dog and golden cat. Honey badgers, jackals, foxes, and ostrich can be found here year-round. A high population of cheetahs and lions can be found in the Lake Ndutu region west of the crater.

The crater is also home to over 500 species of bird, including the Rüppell’s Griffon vulture.

The rarest animals found here are the black male lion and the black rhino. Interestingly, there are no giraffes in the crater; it is thought that they cannot get up the steep sides..

Hiking In The Ngorongoro Crater

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