Riverine Forests are a special and rare habitat within Serengeti National Park. Large rivers, while dry for most of the year, flow and flood during the wet season (December, March-May). Even during the dry season, the water table is higher along the rivers. Because these areas have more water, a dense forest of evergreen trees is able to grow there. The riverine trees, in turn, change the environment below them, making it a special habitat for other plants, insects, birds and animals.

The diversity and abundance of insects and plants makes the forest a wonderful place to find birds, from insect and seed-eaters of all sorts, to the hamerkop with its giant nest, mouse-birds, bee-eaters, owls and the magnificent fish-eagle.

Among the thick layer of leaves, or litter, on the forest floor lives an amazing variety of frogs, lizards and snakes. If a person is lucky, they may see a Monitor Lizard, a four foot-long lizard resting or feeding among the bushes. Animals of all sorts frequent the Riverine Forests. There are insect and seed-eaters which make their homes in the forest such as rats, shrews, banded mongoose and the large marsh mongoose. Plant-eaters such as dikdik, duiker, bushbuck, reedbuck, and waterbuck are common in the Riverine Forests because of the ample food and dense cover. High in the canopy live the Black and White Colobus Monkeys and shy bushbabies who stir the night with their croaking calls. There are also animals such as lions, hyenas, buffalo and elephants who make their living in the grassland, but use the forest for shade and a place to rest.

In the rivers themselves, shaded by the trees of the forest, rest the giant crocodiles of the Grumeti and Mara Rivers. Hippos spend the days submerged in the river or in their greenish pools during the dry season. Amazingly, these two huge species live without conflict in the same cramped pools.