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Below you can find links to information about some of the animals you can see at Werribee Open Range Zoo. We will be adding more animals to the list over time, so if your favourite animal isn't featured, check back soon.
The African Wild Dog has many aliases including the Hunting Dog, Cape Hunting Dog and is also known as the Painted Dog, due to the unique artistic patterns along their body. Their scientific name, Lycaon pictus, is latin, meaning painted wolf.
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The cheetah is the fastest land mammal on earth reaching speeds up to 112km/hour.
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The tallest of all living creatures, the giraffe is perfectly adapted to feeding from the tops of trees in the African savannah.
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Western Lowland Gorillas live in tropical forests on the west coast of Africa. The size of their territory depends on the availability of food and the size of the group.
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The word ‘hippopotamus’ is Greek for ‘river horse’. These large African animals spend most of their time in or near large pools of water and can weigh up to 3 tonnes.
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Often called ‘King of the Jungle’, the lion in fact is not a jungle dweller, but lives on the savannahs of eastern and southern Africa.
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The meerkat is not a cat, nor is it related to the prairie dog. It is a member of the civet family, which includes the otter and mongoose.
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The Southern White Rhinoceros is a ‘gentle giant’ being the calmest of the five rhino species. Living mainly in South Africa, it is under threat from poaching.
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The Serval is the tallest of the African small cats and is easily mistaken for its larger relative, the cheetah, when seen briefly or from a distance.
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Vervets are found in the northern and southern savannahs, ranging from Senegal to Sudan. Vervet society is built on complex but stable social groups (called troops) of 10 to 50 individuals, mainly adult females and their immature offspring.
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A Plains zebra has rather broad stripes, especially towards its rump, with colour ranging from black to dark brown. There may be a brown ‘shadow stripe' between a black and white stripe
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