A zebra walks through the lush grass inside Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater. Unlike zebra and wildebeests outside the crate, animals inside the crate do not take part in the annual migration.
The crater is the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. The crater was formed when a volcano erupted and collapsed 2 to 3 million years ago. It is 2,000 feet deep. The crater floor is mostly open grasslands, and is home to a variety of animals, including Cape buffalo, elephants, zebras, lions and other animals except for giraffes.
This female leopard was relaxing in a tree in Kenya, most likely after a night of hunting and before heading off to bed. They seem to enjoy this position of being draped over a large tree limb. We first spotted this female leopard walking on the ground. A couple of other groups left when she appeared to disappear into the rocks. But our guide saw her in the tree. We waited a few minutes to make sure everyone else was gone, so we got to spend several minutes alone with her before she headed off to sleep.
These two lion cubs in South Africa's Kruger National Park just woke up from a long nap and decided to engage in a bit of play. Lionesses and cubs are quite affectionate. The adult lions were trying to get a few more minutes of sleep.
These cubs, along with some other cubs and a couple of adult lionesses, were soon to set off on their evening hunt. The park was in the throes of a long drought, so the cubs were quite thin.
