What Animals are on Rwenzori Mountains? The Rwenzori Mountains, also known as the Mountains of the Moon, are located in western Uganda, near the Uganda-Congo border. The tropical snow peaks include Africa’s third highest point, and the lower slopes are covered in moorland, bamboo, and lush, damp montane forest.
Enormous lobelias and “everlasting flowers” are strewn across the slope with enormous tree heathers and multicolored mosses, creating an exquisite, fairy-tale landscape.
Rwenzori Mountains National Park preserves the highest portions of the Rwenzori mountain range, which is 120 kilometers long and 65 kilometers broad. The park is home to 70 animals and 217 bird species, including 19 Albertine Rift endemics, as well as some of the world’s most unusual flora.
What Animals are on Rwenzori Mountains?
The Rwenzori Mountains are naturally endowed with a vast range of flower species. It is home to a variety of biological zones, including African savanna, tropical rainforest, bamboo, heath, alpine meadows, and snow. The savanna grassland dominates the base slopes of the Rwenzori Mountains of the Moon, and this area is rich in varied wildlife/faunal species. A rain forest may be found at 1676 and 2286 meters above sea level, outside the savanna zone.
Several animal species are worth seeing when on a Uganda safari in the Rwenzori Mountains. Elephants, bushbucks, duikers, hyrax, red tailed, l’Hoest monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, Angola colobus monkeys, and three-horned chameleons are among the 70 animal species that inhabit the lower slopes.
Because of intense hunting in the 1970s and 1980s, there aren’t as many bigger animals in the mountains. Elephants and buffaloes can still be found in the woodland zone, but they are rarely observed. Chimpanzees, blue monkeys, Rwenzori Colobus monkeys, duiker, woodland hog hyrax, and leopard are the most commonly observed animals. The leopard may be observed as high as 4000 meters.
The Rwenzori Mountains are home to 217 bird species, including numerous endangered and Albertine rift species. Rwenzori Batis, Rwenzori turacos, blue sunbirds, Archer’s robin chat, mountain buzzards, crimson wings, slender billed starling, barred long tailed cuckoo, handsome francolins, stripe breast tit, golden winged sunbird, montane sooty boubou, black & swift eagles are all common.
What you need to know about Rwenzori Mountains?
Climbing the enchanted Rwenzori Mountains is a genuinely fantastic and unforgettable experience. The great range of plant and fauna, as well as the many surroundings as you ascend through different flora zones, gives the ultimate hiking experience.
This extraordinary and spectacular walk, fully unspoilt and undeniably one of the most appealing treks in the world, has never been given before. Rwenzori is the magnificence of the valley of nine lakes, the bristly lichen hanging from enormous heather, all set against a backdrop of granite cliffs, crags, and snow-capped mountaintops.
What you can expect when climbing Rwenzori Mountains?
A hike on Rwenzori Mountains will take you through several vegetation altitudinal zones, each with its unique microclimate, flora, and animals. The Afro-montane forest is the most diverse, covering slopes between 1,800m and 2,500m. Large established trees push to form a canopy, with dense thickets filling in the gaps.
From 2,500 to 3,000 meters in elevation, thick woodland gives place to bamboo stands, with leaves covering the ground in a dense litter and blossoms appearing only once every 30 years. Above here, until you reach 4,000 meters, you enter the heather zone. Sphagnum moss and usnea beard lichens are abundant, while coral pink orchids puncture the ground. Large tussocks cover the bottoms of bog-wet valleys.
The alpine zone, over 4,000 meters, is home to the enormous groundsel, Senecio adnivalis, and the torch lobelia, Lobelia wollastonii. After 4,300m, the flora thins down until just moss, lichen, and a few ‘Everlasting’ plants remain. The plants found over 3,800 meters belong to some of the world’s most enigmatic botanical communities.
Where to stay during your visit to Rwenzori Mountains National Park?
Those wishing for a place to stay while visiting the national park can stay at the Rwenzori Turaco View Campsite, Ruboni Community Camp, Hotel Margherita, Equator Snow Lodges, and Katara Lodge, among other locations.
How to get to Rwenzori Mountains National Park?
The Rwenzori Mountains National Park is accessible by two roads from Kampala to Kasese. The shortest route is from Kampala to Fort Portal via Mubende for a 300km journey, while the longest route is from Kampala to Masaka via Mbarara, Bushenyi, and Kasese for a 350km drive.
The second route to Kasese includes an incredible stopover near the Equator to explore the differences between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
A chartered flight from Entebbe International Airport to Kasese Airstrip can be arranged, followed by a 40-minute drive to the Rwenzori Mountains National Park.
