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False T he term ‘ Big Five’ hails from a bygone era, when the quintet in question – lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo – were supposedly the hunter’s most dangerous adversaries. Images of Roosevelt et al, rifl e butt planted proudly on slain beast, are now enshrined in the mythology of Africa, making these animals the top draw- card for today’s camera- toting tourist. While each of the fi ve is individually impressive, the collective concept remains rather shaky. If it’s size that matters, then elephant and white rhino pass muster as Africa’s biggest and second- biggest land mammals respectively, but black rhino ( confusingly, the term embraces both species of rhino) is smaller than both hippo and giraffe, neither of which makes the list. A bull eland, meanwhile, can outweigh a buffalo. And though the lion is undeniably Africa’s largest carnivore, the leopard weighs no more than your average aardvark – or indeed human. Most dangerous, then? Well, certainly each of the fi ve can easily despatch one of us – and may occasionally be provoked into doing so, especially if shot at. In truth, though, most do their best to avoid people. The hippo has probably claimed more victims than any of the ‘ Big Five’, while the Nile crocodile is the only African predator that consistently targets people. And let’s not even start on mosquitoes... But the Big Five appeal endures. Harmless fun, you might think. But it is also big business, with few operators daring to leave these A- listers off their brochure covers. All this, however, can foster a rather blinkered view of the natural world, with lion- less game drives deemed a failure, despite the wealth of other species sighted. Some operators, realising this, extend their list to ‘ Big Six’ in order to accommodate wild dog or cheetah. Others compile a Big Five of birds or trees. But why stop at ‘ big’? Or indeed at ‘ fi ve’? Africa is packed with wonderful wildlife, so we decided to develop some alternative groupings. Are you ready to go in search of the noisy nine or the oddball eight? WILDLIFE msafi ri 108 Step aside elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard – you might well be on most safari- goers’ wishlists, but there’s much more to African wildlife than ‘ big’ and ‘ fi ve’, says Mike Unwin BEYOND THEBIG