Animals Found in Uganda

It’s no secret that Africa is best known for its wildlife wonders, and Uganda takes an impressive chunk of the wild pie with an incredible list of wild animals. Uganda’s untamed wilderness offers a wonderful mix of savannah and forest wildlife. Mountain gorillas and chimpanzees take most of the attention but Uganda has more than 13 primate species offering the best primate viewing adventures in Africa. All the safari BIG Five (lion, elephant, buffalo, hippo, and leopard). You can easily spot lions in all the big savannah parks.

The official checklist of animals found in Uganda includes 342 species, representing both west and east African mammals. 132 of the species occurring in Uganda are large mammals and the other small mammals.

The small mammals consist of 94 bat species, 70 rats and mice, 33 shrews and otter shrews, eight gerbils, four elephant shrews, and a solitary golden mole.

If you’re lucky enough to consider a wildlife-watching experience while on safari in Uganda, visit Uganda’s magnificent wildlife destinations on the western safari circuite. The thrills of a typical African safari are endless.

On a self-drive safari trip, you might have anxious antelopes springing across the road as you approach while their mellower buddies stand there outside your window, twitching their tails in the sunlight.

Suppose you’ve planned an all-inclusive Uganda safari and chosen to hoist yourself up into a safari truck. In that case, you may find yourself chauffeured into the midst of a herd of elephants, their wrinkled hides almost close enough to touch or park right in front of a large herd of buffalo lying in a field on a night drive and experience the adrenaline hike with dangerously skittish beasts like the twinkle of dozens of tiny eyes in the moonlight.

A walking safari among the African bush with an expert local will deliver the right jilt of experience up your spine. Boat trips can offer a front-row seat of watching animals in Uganda, an experience revered by many a traveler.

What follows is an overview of the large and small mammal species found in Uganda, pointing out the distribution and habitat within Uganda’s wildlife destinations. Click on the appropriate link to find a detailed description of the animal.

Later, get familiar with what a traveler may consider the most dangerous animals in Uganda.

List of Animals Found in Uganda

Primates

Experts characterize primates as mammals of an order that includes lemurs, bushbabies, tarsiers, marmosets, monkeys, apes, and humans. They are distinguished by having hands, feet similar to hands, and forward-facing eyes, and, except for humans, they are typically agile tree-dwellers.

Primates exceptionally take the most considerable tourism attention of all animals found in Uganda, with the present checklist showing off 13 diurnal (active during the day) and six nocturnal species.

Six of the diurnal primates found in Uganda are guenon monkeys (monkeys found in forests, typically with a long tail). The velvet and blue guenon monkeys, for instance, are both widespread African species known by at least five different common names, and both have over 20 recognized races, some of which scientists consider to be separate species.

Apes

Ape (superfamily Hominoidea) includes any primate without a tail of the families Hylobatidae (gibbons) and Hominidae (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, and human beings).

Great apes are distinguished from monkeys by the complete absence of a tail and presence of an appendix and by their more complex brains. The great apes are so closely related to humans that even scientists place the chimpanzee as closely related to humans as it is to any other ape.

Only two of the great apes live in Uganda.

Monkeys

All the monkeys found in Uganda are members of the family Old World Monkeys (Cercopithecidae). They fall into five genera: Colobus (closely related to the leaf-eating monkeys of Asia), Cercopithecus (guenons), Papio (baboons), Erythrocebus (patas), and Cercocebus (mangabeys). Read more …

Nocturnal Primates 

Seldom observed on account of their nocturnal habits, the prosimians are a relic group of primitive primates more closely related to the lemurs of Madagascar than to the diurnal monkeys and apes of the African mainland.

Carnivores Animals in Uganda

A total of 38 carnivores have been recorded in Uganda: five canid species, seven felines, three hyenas, ten mongooses, six mustelids (otters, badgers, and weasels), and seven viverrids (civets and genets).

Felines (Cats)

Feline (Felidae) includes any of 37 cat species that, among others, include the cheetah, puma, jaguar, leopard, lion, lynx, tiger, and a domestic cat. Cats are native to almost every region on Earth, except for Australia and Antarctica.

They are carnivorous mammals that live in various habitats, but they are typically woodland animals.

Smaller Cats (Felis)

Canids (Dog Family)

The Canidae is a family of medium-sized carnivores, of which the most familiar is the domestic dog.

Five species, all recognizably dog-like in appearance and habits — are some of the animals present in Uganda, though none is widespread.

Other Carnivores

Herbivores

Antelope in Uganda

Some 29 antelope species — about one-third of the African total are included on the checklist for Animals in Uganda.

There are probably no more than ten roan antelope remaining in Uganda, while no oryx is left. Of the species that do occur, they live in the category of large antelope, eight in the category of medium-sized antelope, and the remainder are small antelope. Read more …

Large antelope

Very small antelope

Large Herbivore Mammals found in Uganda

Other Herbivores