A herd of wildebeests and plains zebras (Equus quagga, subgenus Hippotigris), Ndutu Lake area, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, in the southern Serengeti plains ecosystem, in Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region, Tanzania, East Africa. Wildebeest (genus Connochaetes) often graze symbiotically in mixed herds with zebra (subgenus Hippotigris). Zebras excel at sight, navigation, and defense and eat long grass. Wildebeest have superior sense of hearing and smell (to locate water and predators) and crop short grass with square lips. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) hosts the Great Migration — the world's most massive land animal migration (in terms of total body weight). This annual circuit of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and other herbivores began in the 1960s and circles from the NCA clockwise through Serengeti National Park to the northwest and through Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve and back. The Great Migration's crossing of the Mara River occurs twice: northwards around late July to August then turning southwards around the last two weeks of October through early November. Wildebeest (or gnu) are antelopes native to Eastern and Southern Africa. They belong to the family Bovidae, which includes true antelopes, cattle, goats, sheep, and other even-toed horned ungulates. UNESCO honors the NCA as a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve. The Serengeti Plains and Ecosystem span the Mara and Arusha Regions of Tanzania.
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