British wildlife photographer George Benjamin, a.k.a. George the Explorer, happened to be in just the right place at the right time to get a picture of an extremely rare all-black serval cat in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania in October 2019.
Having heard rumors of a black serval in the area, with the help of a local guide from eco-tourism company Asilia Africa, Benjamin spotted one and photographed it at close range. The odds of seeing this elusive and unusual “melanistic” cat that camouflages in the tall grass of the park were slim. Servals, wrote Benjamin in a Reddit post, are “shy, secretive cats that tend to live in tall grasses—the perfect combination for staying unnoticed.”
