A Trip to Tanzania Trivia Quiz

Answer: It's the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world (i.e. it's not part of a mountain range). It has three distinct peaks: Shira, Kibo, and Mawenzi. Kibo is the tallest, rising over 19000 ft (almost 5900 meters and more than 3 miles) at Uhuru Peak. Even though the mountain is very close to the Equator, the peaks are so high that snow and ice can form on them. The "Seven Summits" are the highest points on each of the seven continents. Despite its height, Kilimanjaro is fourth, behind Everest, Aconcagua, and McKinley.

Although all three of Kilimanjaro's peaks were once active stratovolcanoes, only Kibo is dormant; the other two have been extinct for years. Despite this, Kilimanjaro's biodiversity is shocking. It is home to the world's only "water-holding cabbage," and numerous forests grow around the mountain. Elephants and buffaloes live on the its northern slopes.

Answer: To search for rain-ripened grass

Each year, 1.5 million wildebeest and 200,000 zebra make a circular journey of 1800 miles, following the rains in order to find new grasses. The trip is very dangerous, because lions and other predators constantly attack the massive group of animals, and crocodiles lie in ambush in rivers along the journey.

The Serengeti marks the southern terminus for this migration. In addition to the wildebeest and zebra, the Serengeti Plains feature a number of other animals, including the so-called Big Five: lions, leopards, elephants, black rhinoceros, and African buffalo. Cheetahs, gazelles, baboons, hyenas, giraffes, ostriches, and many other species of animals also live within the Serengeti National Park.

Answer: Olduvai Gorge

Olduvai Gorge was once a large lake, until the diversion of a river through the bed helped to reveals seven distinct rock layers in the canyon. The earliest deposit provided evidence of stone tools from an early ancestor, and it was here that the Leakeys discovered Homo habilis ("handy man").

The canyon is sometimes referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind." In addition to Homo habilis, they found an Australopithecus fossil, which would have been a human ancestor that lived 1.75 million years ago.

Answer: Flamingoes

Flamingoes nest in the salt pools, which reach temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit), have strong salt concentrations, and may have pHs of over 10, comparable to ammonia. The pools act as a buffer against predators that would eat the flamingoes' eggs.

They also provide a habitat for the blue-green algae, which are the main flamingo food source during mating season. Even more surprisingly, a species of fish called the alkaline tilapia can actually live inside of the salt pools.

Answer: Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika is one of the so-called "African Great Lakes," along with Lakes Victoria, Malawi, Turkana, Albert, Kivu, and Edward. Tanzania lays claim to 41% of the lake (less than the DRC's 45%), which extends from Burundi in the north to Zambia in the south, in between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The deepest lake in Africa and shallower only than Russia's Lake Baikal, Lake Tanganyika is generally considered the third-largest freshwater lake in the world, after Baikal and the Caspian Sea.

One species of fish, the cichlid, is found almost exclusively in Lake Tanganyika and the surrounding waters, and is often used for case studies in evolution. Lake Tanganyika was the site of two battles during World War I, and Che Guevara trained guerilla troops alongside the lake in 1965.

Answer: Selous Game Reserve

Frederick Selous was a British game hunter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the inspiration for the character of Allan Quatermain in H. Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines."

The Selous Game Reserve is one of Tanzania's best-kept secrets. The concentration of the deadly tsetse fly (which transmits sleeping sickness) keeps visitors away from the reserve, which is larger than any other reserve of its kind at more than 50,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles). Savanna animals like the elephant, hippopotamus, buffalo, and crocodile are found in great number in the Reserve. The Rufiji River, the largest river in East Africa, contributes to the region's biodiversity. Unlike many other parks in Africa, safari by foot is allowed in the Selous Game Reserve.

Answer: Dodoma

Dar es Salaam is much more famous than the new capital of Dodoma, but the Tanzanian National Assembly moved to the small city in February 1996. Despite the change, government offices still exist in Dar es Salaam, and the old capital, which has eight times more people, remains a commerical center. Dar es Salaam is the richest and most populous city in Tanzania, but its location on Tanzania's eastern coast made it impractical as capital.

Answer: Mangrove swamps

The East African mangrove swamps extend from Mozambique to Somalia and exhibit an astounding amount of flora and fauna. The mangrove trees of the region can grow 30 meters tall and grow in brackish water. Monkeys, turtles, hippos, dugongs, elephants, buffalo, and many species of bird live in the region. Dar es Salaam, as well as the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, are found in this part of Tanzania.

A hot and humid climate with two annual rainy seasons contrasts with the grasslands further west.

Answer: Kalambo Falls

Kalambo Falls isn't as famous for its height (only 235 meters or 772 feet, compared to Angel Falls' 979 meters) as for its importance in archaeology. Excavated in 1953 by John Desmond Clark, the site's evidence of wooden tools and hearths indicates the people living in the area were using fire more then 60,000 years ago. Tools have been dated using carbon-14 to be from around 300,000 BCE.

As far as uninterrupted African waterfalls go, it is smaller only than Tugela Falls in South Africa, but it's nowhere near as wide as its southern cousin, Victoria Falls, between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Answer: Ngorongoro

The Ngorongoro Crater is home to the world's densest population of lions and has a huge population, too, of wildebeest, elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, zebra, leopards, and hyenas. There are approximately 25,000 animals in the crater of 100 square miles.

After a drought in 2000, scientists are using controlled burning of the grasslands in order to prevent from stronger fires from breaking out. Unlike other places in Tanzania, both humans and animals are allowed to live in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.