The Tarangire National Park is located between the meadows of Masai Steppe to the south east and the lakes of the Great Rift Valley to the north and west.
The Tarangire River is a permanent. There are a number of large swamps, which are usually dry for most of the year .
The Tarangire is usually very dry ,in fact drier than the Serengeti, however its vegetation is much more green especially with lots of elephant grass, vast areas with mixed acacia woodlands and some of the wonderful ribbons of the aquatic forest.
Many of the animals leave the park during the months of November to May. The zebras as well as large herds of wildebeests move into the north-western direction towards the Rift Valley floor amongst the large numbers of animals that spread across the large open areas of the Masaai Steppe.
There are numbers of elephants, the wildebeests, zebras, impalas, eland, buffalo and giraffes, Bohor reedbuck, Thompson’s gazelle, greater and lesser kudu and the Coke’s hartebeest. On really some rare occasions, the common usual gerenuk and fringe –eared Oryx are also seen. A few black rhinos are also thought to be still present in this park.
The predators found here include leopards, lions, hyenas, and cheetah that seem to be popular within the southern open areas. The wild dogs are only seen once in a while.
There are over 500 species of birds within the Tarangire. The lovebirds that are yellow collared, the shy starlings are in plenty and widespread in Tanzania.
Mainly, the dry open woods like e acacia thickets, as well as many of its significant baobab trees make up the vegetation of the Tarangire. The stunning acacia tortillis trees not forgetting the occasional palm tree. There are also huge flat swamps within the woodlands in the south that get very impassable during the rains.
