The Ugly five of Africa, and the best places to find them

The Ugly five of Africa, do not confuse them up with the big five!

In my last post, I told you the best tips and tricks to find Africa’s big 5 animals. Even though these where the animals I was initially looking for during my safari through Southern Africa, once there, I heard about another group of interesting animals: The Ugly Five of Africa.

Which animals are the Ugly Five of Africa

Even though not strictly hideous, these animals will never rank as the most beautiful in the Sabana. They are quirky, often overlooked, and not too-nice to look at, but they are wild animals whatsoever and they’ve earned their spot on a list. It may not be the big fancy “Big Five” list, but they are too cool for mainstream attention anyways.

The five animals included in this cool list are: Wildebeest (also known as those who killed Mufasa), Marabou, Hyena (yes, Lion King vibes coming in again), Warthog (Pumba, anyone?) and Vultures.

Where to see Africa’s Ugly five

Wildebeest

At the Okavango Delta (Botswana) there are some of the largest herds of wildebeest in Africa. Despite this, the most well-known location to find this ugly five of Africa is in Kenya, during their period of migration. Once a year millions of these animals cross the Masai Mara Reserve and Serengeti to arrive to greener lands during rainy season. They are often followed by an almost as large herd of tourists eager to photograph them from all existing angles.

Marabou Stork

These guys looks like the result of an orgy between a few pelicans and a vultures that went all wrong. This may be one of the largest birds I have ever seen anywhere during my travels. These, let’s accept it, hideous guys are one of the Ugly Five of Africa and you can find them almost anywhere in the Eastern Sub Sahara Africa. I saw a big colony of marabous at the Okavango Delta in Botswana, but since they are scavengers, they are common. And they are quite creepy.

Hyena

Like the marabou and the vulture, the hyenas are also scavengers (maybe this is a common denominator across ugly animals?). It definitely looks like it while looking at this list. In any case, I must say that I encountered a group of over twenty hyenas at Krugger NP in South Africa, and the young puppies were more than adorable.

Different species of animals are included below the title “hyenas”. And one species or the other cover most of Africa and part of the Middle East. This guys are quite important for the ecosystem, since they chew on the bones preventing the savanna from becoming a cemetery of old bones. Because of that, and because they don’t have a pelt attractive for industry and usually mind their own business, they are widespread across a massive chunk of territory.

Warthog

These are some funny looking animals. They move around tiptoeing the ground and they are much faster than anyone may imagine. Specially for pigs. Besides, they are the beloved Pumba’s from the Lion King. Funny thing, guides will often refer to them as Pumbas instead of Warthogs .

They are sometimes hard to see because they are shy and afraid of their own shadow. However, often you will manage to find them in large families in many locations around the African savanna. They usually live between Ethiopia and Senegal and all the way down to South Africa. Along with the wildebeest, I think these are some of the most common animals from the Ugly Five of Africa.

Vulture

These big birds are also scavengers and well known around the globe. Unlike the rest of Ugly Five of Africa, there are many species of vultures located around most of the globe (except Australia). Here you can see where they live. These guys are often found in Africa feasting on dead animals and sharing their prey with hyenas and other beautiful animals.

Other infamous five

Besides the very well known Big five of Africa and the not-so-pretty Ugly Five of Africa that I just introduced, there are other lists of infamous five animals from Africa. Here you have a small taste of them.

The Little five

This may seem obvious, but these are some of the hardest animals to see when visiting Africa. Why? Well, because they are the smallest! Besides these animals being small, the people who named them also have a special sense of humor. The animals included in this group are: the elephant shrew, the buffalo weaver, the leopard tortoise, the rhino beetle and the antlion. Can you find any similarities with the infamous big five (elephant, buffalo, leopard, rhino and lion)?

I do not need to say I didn’t see a single one of them.

The Shy five

These are even harder to see than the previous, but their size makes slightly easier to spot them. On a night game drive, we did see a porcupine, but that was about all. Besides the porcupine, this list if conformed by the meerkat (the Timon to our beloved Pumba), the aardwolf, the bat-eared fox and aardvarck. These are hard to see, and almost unknown, what most likely earned them the name of the Shy Five.

The impossible five

Needless to say, these are the hardest animals to find during a safari in Africa. The aardvarck is also in this list of strange animals, although it is also in the Shy Five list. Besides this animal, the remaining species in the impossible five are the pangolin, the cape mountain leopard, the riverine rabbit and the wild white lion.

Have you seen any of the Ugly five of Africa? Or the shy five? What about the impossible five? Let me know about it in the comment section!