Night game drives are not permitted inside the Serengeti National Park itself — a regulation that protects wildlife from disturbance during the hours when they are most vulnerable and most active. But the private conservancies and concession areas that border the national park operate under different regulations, and for travellers staying in camps within these areas, night game drive in Serengeti private conservancy spotlighting nocturnal wildlife opens up an entirely different dimension of the ecosystem.

The Africa that exists between dusk and dawn is not the Africa of the game drive. During the day, the savannah shows you its most visible inhabitants. At night, it reveals its secret ones. The spotlight beam, swept slowly across the bush from a raised game vehicle, picks up eye-shine at distances of 50 to 100 metres — the paired amber glow of a hyena, the golden flash of a lion, the tiny but intensely reflective eyes of a bush baby (galago) clinging to an acacia branch three metres above the ground.

What Appears After Dark

Bush babies are among the most delightful and least-expected pleasures of the nocturnal Serengeti. These small primates — the greater galago and the lesser galago are both present in the ecosystem — emerge at night to feed on insects and acacia gum, leaping between branches with extraordinary speed and precision, their enormous eyes adapted to function in almost total darkness. At close range in the spotlight, a bush baby stares back at you with eyes that look borrowed from a much larger animal, and the effect is immediately charming.

The African civet — a large, cat-like carnivore with a distinctive black-and-white pattern — is another nocturnal specialist regularly encountered on night game drives. Civets move methodically through the bush, their strong scent glands leaving territorial markings on prominent stones and stumps. The serval cat, with its long legs, large ears, and spotted coat, hunts rodents in the long grass with extraordinary precision — leaping straight up and dropping onto prey it has located by sound alone in complete darkness. Spring hares — large, kangaroo-like rodents that bound across open ground on oversized hind legs — are common and endlessly entertaining in the spotlight beam.

The night drive typically concludes with a sundowner stop in the bush — a table set in the headlights with cold drinks and snacks, the sounds of the nocturnal Serengeti surrounding you, and occasionally the distant whoop of a hyena or the sawing cough of a leopard carrying on the night air. It is a perfect counterpoint to the game drive and, for guests who have already spent several days game viewing, it reveals an entirely new side of a landscape they thought they were beginning to know.