CG: n

CT: A savanna is a rolling grassland scattered with shrubs and isolated trees, which can be found between a tropical rainforest and desert biome. Not enough rain falls on a savanna to support forests. Savannas are also known as tropical grasslands. They are found in a wide band on either side of the equator on the edges of tropical rainforests.

Savannas have warm temperature year round. There are actually two very different seasons in a savanna; a very long dry season (winter), and a very wet season (summer). In the dry season only an average of about 4 inches of rain falls. Between December and February no rain will fall at all. Oddly enough, it is actually a little cooler during this dry season. But don’t expect sweater weather; it is still around 70° F.

In the summer there is lots of rain. In Africa the monsoon rains begin in May. An average of 15 to 25 inches of rain falls during this time. It gets hot and very humid during the rainy season. Every day the hot, humid air rises off the ground and collides with cooler air above and turns into rain. In the afternoons on the summer savanna the rains pour down for hours. African savannas have large herds of grazing and browsing hoofed animals. Each animal has a specialized eating habit that reduces compitition for food.

There are several different types of savannas around the world. The savannas we are most familiar with are the East African savannas covered with acacia trees. The Serengeti Plains of Tanzania are some of the most well known. Here animals like lions, zebras, elephants, and giraffes and many types of ungulates(animals with hooves) graze and hunt. Many large grass-eating mammals (herbivores) can survive here because they can move around and eat the plentiful grasses. There are also lots of carnivores (meat eaters) who eat them in turn.

South America also has savannas, but there are very few species that exist only on this savanna. In Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, savannas occupy some 2.5 million square kilometers, an area about one-quarter the size of Canada. Animals from the neighboring biomes kind of spill into this savanna. The Llanos of the Orinoco basin of Venezuela and Columbia is flooded annually by the Orinoco River. Plants have adapted to growing for long periods in standing water. The capybara and marsh deer have adapted themselves to a semi-aquatic life.

Brazil’s cerrado is an open woodland of short twisted trees. The diversity of animals is very great here, with several plants and animals that don’t exist anywhere else on earth.

There is also a savanna in northern Australia. Eucalyptus trees take the place of acacias in the Australian savanna. There are many species of kangaroos in this savanna but not too much diversity of different animals.

S: BPB – https://blueplanetbiomes.org/savanna.php (last access: 21 April 2025)

N: 1. savannah, also savanna, “treeless plain,” 1550s, from Spanish sabana, earlier zavana “treeless plain,” (Oviedo, 1535) from Taino (Arawakan) zabana. In U.S. use, especially in Florida, “a tract of low-lying marshy ground” (1670s). Savannah-grass is by 1756.

2. savanna, also known as savannah.

• savanna, vegetation type that grows under hot, seasonally dry climatic conditions and is characterized by an open tree canopy (i.e., scattered trees) above a continuous grass understory (the vegetation layer between the forest canopy and the ground). The largest areas of savanna are found in Africa, South America, Australia, India, the Myanmar–Thailand region in Asia, and Madagascar.

3. Origin.

• Savannas arose as rainfall progressively lessened in the edges of the tropics during the Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago to the present)—in particular, during the past 25 million years. Grasses, the dominant plants of savannas, appeared only about 50 million years ago, although it is possible that some savanna-like vegetation lacking grasses occurred earlier. The South American fossil record provides evidence of a well-developed vegetation, rich in grass and thought to be equivalent to modern savanna, being established by the early Miocene Epoch, about 20 million years ago.
• Climates across the world became steadily cooler during that period. Lower ocean surface temperatures reduced water evaporation, which slowed the whole hydrologic cycle, with less cloud formation and precipitation. The vegetation of midlatitude regions, lying between the wet equatorial areas and the moist cool temperate zones, was affected substantially.

• The main regions in which savannas emerged in response to that long-term climatic change—tropical America, Africa, South Asia, and Australia—were already separated from each other by ocean barriers by that time. Plant migration across those barriers was inhibited, and the details of the emergence of savannas on each continent varied. In each region different plant and animal species evolved to occupy the new seasonally dry habitats.

  In temperate regions, savannas became much more widespread, at the expense of forests, during the long, cool, dry intervals—contemporaneous with the ice ages, or glacial intervals, of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). Studies of fossilized pollen in sediments from sites in South America, Africa, and Australia provide strong support for this view.

• When human beings (Homo sapiens) first appeared, in Africa, they initially occupied the savanna. Later, as they became more adept at modifying the environment to suit their needs, they spread to Asia, Australia, and the Americas. There their impact on the nature and development of savanna vegetation was superimposed on the natural pattern, adding to the variation seen among savanna types. The savannas of the world currently are undergoing another phase of change as modern expansion of the human population impinges on the vegetation and fauna.

4. Geomorphology and Geomorphogeny: savanna, savannah.

5. Physical Geography (General); Silviculture; Ecology (General): savanna woodland.

6. Collocations: dry savanna; moist savanna; oak savanna; savanna woodland; savanna climate; terai-duar savanna; tropical savanna; african savanna; savanna habitat; to find in savanna.

7. Cultural Interrelation: We can mention the book Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People (2007) written by Mark James Owens & Cordelia Dykes Owens; and the movie Savannah (2013) directed by Annette Haywood-Carter. Drama about the friendship between an Oxford-educated Southerner and a former black slave in turn-of-the-century Savannah. In this case, Savannah is a toponym meaning that oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County which was established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the British colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia.

S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=savanna (last access: 21 April 2025). 2 & 3. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/savanna (last access: 21 April 2025). 4 & 5. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=SAVANNA&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs, https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=SAVANNA+FOREST&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 21 April 2025). 6. FW – https://fluentwords.net/en/collocations/savanna/en (last access: 21 April 2025). 7. Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Savanna-Twenty-three-Wilderness-Unraveling/dp/B0058M70KI (last access: 21 April 2025); IMDb – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1797487/ (last access: 21 April 2025).

OV: savannah

S: EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/savanna (last access: 21 April 2025); TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=SAVANNA&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 21 April 2025).

SYN:
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CR: arid zone, biome, canid, ecology, felid, forest, glossina, jungle, prairie, steppe, taiga, tropical rainforest, tundra.