Kruger National Park was established in 1898 to protect the wildlife of the South African Lowveld, this national park sits on over 2 million hectares of geographically diverse land. The term Big Five in Kruger National Park now refers to Africa's most popular sightseeing wildlife animals; buffalos, elephants, rhinos, lions, and leopards.

These Big Five Baby African Animals Are Just Too Cute

Mommies cute baby Cape Buffalo by Belgian chocolate

Baby African or Cape Buffalo

Cape buffalos are known to have exceptional memory and strength. The Cape buffalo is the only member of the buffalo and cattle tribe Bovini that occurs naturally in Africa. The Cape buffalo is not very tall it stands only 130–150 cm or 51–59 inches tall and has relatively short legs but it is enormous, weighing between 425–870 kg or 935–1,910 pounds. Bulls are about 100 kg or 220 pounds heavier than female cows, and their horns are thicker and usually wider, up to 100 cm or 40 inches across, with a broad shield covering the forehead. The coat is thin and black, except in young calves, whose coats may be either black or brown. One of the most successful of Africa’s wild ruminants, the Cape buffalo thrives in virtually all types of grassland habitat in sub-Saharan Africa, from dry savanna to swamp and from lowland floodplains to montane mixed forest and glades, as long as it is within commuting distance of water up to 20 km or 12 miles.

The cutest baby elephant calf ever by color blindness

Baby Elephant Calf

Elephants have a nimble trunk composed of 100,000 muscles with two finger-like features on the end of their trunk that they use to grab small items. When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 7.5 liters or 2 gallons of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant's throat. When an elephant gets a whiff of something interesting, it sniffs the air with its trunk raised up like a submarine periscope. If threatened, an elephant will also use its trunk to make loud trumpeting noises as a warning. Since African elephants live where the sun is usually blazing hot, they use their trunks to help them keep cool. First, they squirt a trunkful of cool water over their bodies. Then they often follow that with a sprinkling of dust to create a protective layer of dirt on their skin. Elephants pick up and spray dust the same way they do water with their trunks. The African elephant is the largest animal walking on Earth; it eats roots, grasses, fruits, and bark of trees, up to 300 pounds in a single day.

Baby Black Rhino calf walking with mom

Baby Rhino Calf

Today very few rhinos survive outside national parks and reserves due to persistent poaching and habitat loss over many decades. The African rhino is divided into two species, the black rhino and the white rhino. White rhinos mainly live in South Africa, but they have also been reintroduced to Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Southern white rhinos have been introduced to Kenya, Zambia, and Cote d’Ivoire. The majority of the black rhino population 98%, is concentrated in four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. South Africa houses 40% of the total black rhino population. There are some black rhinos in the region spread between Cameroon and Kenya.

Playful lion cub by Tambako the Jaguar

Baby Lion Cub

Young cubs display a pattern of brown spots and rosettes that is similar to the patterning on the coat of leopard and may be useful as camouflage. For all of their roaring, growling, and ferociousness, lions are family animals and truly social in their own communities. They usually live in groups of 15 or more animals called prides. Prides can be as small as 3 or as big as 40 animals. In a pride, lions hunt prey, raise cubs, and defend their territory together. In prides, the females do most of the hunting and cub rearing. Usually, all the lionesses in the pride are related mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and sisters. Many of the females in the pride give birth at about the same time. A cub may nurse from other females as well as its mother. Each pride generally will have no more than two adult males.

Too cute African Leopard cub Wilderness Safaris

Baby Leopard Cub

Leopards are primarily nocturnal ground-dwelling animals climbing trees to escape from danger. The leopard is so strong and comfortable in trees that it often hauls its kills into the branches. By dragging the bodies of large animals aloft it hopes to keep them safe from scavengers such as hyenas. Leopards can also hunt from trees, where their spotted coats allow them to blend with the leaves until they spring with a deadly pounce. Leopards are graceful and powerful big cats closely related to lions, tigers, and jaguars. They live in sub-Saharan Africa, northeast Africa, Central Asia, India, and China. However, many of their populations are endangered, especially outside of Africa.

[Read: Living on Jackass African Penguin Island]