African Savanna

About the African Savanna

Savanna is grassland with just enough trees to matter. It exists because rainfall arrives in one concentrated season and then stops, which lets grass dominate but leaves fire and grazing to keep woodland from closing over. That open structure is what produced the animals East Africa is famous for: herds large enough to need long sightlines, and predators that hunt by stalking through cover just tall enough to hide in. The seasonal rhythm drives everything — the wet season fills waterholes and spreads animals thinly across the plain, and the dry season concentrates them around whatever water is left, which is when the hunting is easiest and the competition is fiercest. Grazers here work in sequence rather than in competition, with zebra taking the coarse tops and antelope following into the shorter growth behind them.