14,700 square kilometers

The Serengeti Plains are incredible endless flat plains, the scale of which you will not find anywhere else. Actually the plains are quite small. You can drive right across them along their longest axis in less than two hours. The Serengeti Plains are famous because of a unique set of geological and meteorological circumstances that has caused a certain distinct seasonal pattern of grass growth, which in turn is the driving force behind a huge annual migration of grazing animals. 

The wildebeest migration 

Each year over 1,200,000 wildebeest migrate up to 1000 kilometers around the Serengeti eco-system, driven by the ever-changing pattern of food and water supplies. The migration does not follow an ordered path throughout the year. Diagrams explaining the month by month movements are intended only as a simplistic rough guide.

A more honest description of the migration might be ... As the dry season sets in the migrants move from the southern plains into the northern woodlands, where they remain for several months. When the rain starts again, the wildebeest return to the southern plains to calve. In this never ending quest for good grazing, the route changes every year, sometimes sending them way out into the Western Corridor or outside the eastern boundaries of the park. On their journey, the animals pass through the three main habitats of the Serengeti - the southern grass plains (long & short), the northern woodlands and the riverine areas of Grumeti, Seronera and Mara.

If you stop your Landrover in the middle of the Serengeti Plains, switch off the engine and sit on the roof for a few minutes, you quickly become aware of the stark simplicity of this part of the eco-system. ... soil to grass ... ... grass to large herbivore ... ... large herbivore to large carnivore ... ... large carnivore to soil ... There are a few other little features along the way, but that is basically it. You are sitting out on a plain where just about the only living things are grass and large mammals. It is experiencing this simplicity for the first time that gets you to asking questions about how this place really works

Critical thing here is how to remove the chance element from the food search. Obviously grass growth is seasonal and there probably is a pattern that you need to follow throughout the year in order to benefit from the experience of last year. if you could just evolve a memory good enough to remind you where and when you found the best grass last year ... The various herbivores of the Serengeti have managed to develop this memory function to variable levels of success. Obviously elephant have been quite successful in this respect, with a reputation for achieving staggering feats of memory. Zebra are reputed to be quite good too. But wildebeest, as their look suggests, are not the brightest and seem to demonstrate a more goldfish-like approach to memory, which leads to another interesting area of co-operation between the herbivores here ... It is said that the migration is navigated by a partnership between the wildebeest and the zebra, the first using its sense of smell to detect rain and hence initiate the movement and then by the zebra, who has some recollection of the route from the previous year. This seems to have been corroborated by observation last season when it all went terribly wrong with the failure of the November rains and the wildebeest and zebra finally ended their co-operation in mutual disgust. The zebra stood still and waited for the rain that could remember would come eventually, whilst the poor stupid wildebeest wandered endlessly this way and that across the plains, chasing ever clap of thunder and fork of lightning