African Animals Bracket

Hey there bracket fans!!!! Thanks for checking in again on our newest bracket!

This week we bring you the African Animals bracket! Most people would believe that Africa has the coolest animals anywhere on this wonderful planet. We thought it would be a great idea to decide which of those animals were our favorites and have some match ups. This is not who we think would win in a fight, but perhaps we will do that bracket some other time. Instead, we are just picking our favorites. Which ones we enjoy seeing the most. Our resident animal expert was ready to take on the challenge and asked for this bracket to happen early.

Without further adu, here is our African Animals Bracket.

We again decided to have themed sections and selected animals that are predominantly in Africa. We decided to go with a generic rhino instead of separating them into white rhino vs. black rhino. Additionally, I just wrote Elephant, but we are talking about an African Elephant. I focused on animals that Eli had seen as well, so that he could participate. A good portion of these can be found on the safari at Animal Kingdom. Originally, I had included King Cobra, but after additional research I saw that they were native to Asia, not Africa. So I redid the bracket and included a spitting cobra which changed the seeding a bit.

The bracket was separated by Flashy animals, Hidden Gems, Stunning Animals, and animals with lots of Teeth. The goal was to separate out rhinos, elephants, and lions for everyone and keep themed sections. That goal worked and so do the sections. Hidden gems are animals that are good at hiding and/or rarely seen in the wild. Flashy animals are animals that catch your eye because they have some crazy trait. A zebra's stripes, a giraffe's spots, something that grabs your attention. Stunning animals are animals that are just absolutely majestic. They just take your breath away. That's the perfect way to describe an elephant in my opinion. Finally, the teeth section is where you get your big predators and other animals with lots of big, scary teeth.

As always, we start with Mr. Brackets, Noland Jr.

The lion was always Noland's #2 animal behind only the tiger. That changed recently when we saw a cheetah run at Busch Gardens. Speed may kill, but it also sells little kids. Seeing the blazing speed of the cheetah was enough to make it pass the lion for Jr. That speed was beyond impressive. I hope everyone one day gets to experience it. The lion is now his #3 animal overall and #2 from Africa.

He really likes rhinos as well and likes them more because they are my favorite. There is a lemur in Zoboomafoo, which is one of his favorite shows period. That lemur helps move all lemurs into the Elite 8 for Noland Jr. Rounding out the top 8 were the Nile Monitor, the honey badger, pangolin, and leopard.

The hardest decision in the bracket according to him was whether to pick a bongo or an addax. He really liked seeing both on the safari and they both have sweet horns. Bongo was the ultimate choice because that animal is more colorful. Another tough one was honey badger or meerkat because there is a meerkat and a honey badger in the lion guard. We saw honey badgers at the Naples Zoo and that convinced him that it is the superior animal, but he really likes looking at meerkats.

There were a few surprises in his bracket. I was shocked that he took a cape vulture over a Thomson's Gazelle and then over giraffes as well. Also a hippo losing to a waterbuck? Really, don't know where that one came from. It seems like Nile Monitor making it all the way to the Elite 8 is an upset, but not with my boys. They love big lizards and this monitor is very similar to the Komodo Dragon. What a cool animal. He might not be the only one to have that upset.

Now, let's look at our sweet Eli's bracket

 We knew two things going into Eli's bracket. It was going to be giraffe vs. hippo in the final and giraffe would win. He just loves giraffes so much. They have been his favorite animal for as long as I can remember. It is the first animal he said the name of and one of his first words period. Absolutely loves giraffes. Lately, he has really started enjoying hippos too.

His final four rounded out with jackal and cheetah. One was obvious, the cheetah. Just like Noland, he saw that Cheetah run and was so amazed by its blazing speed. After that, he has asked to go back daily. He loves the cheetah run. Heck, this boy loves the Cheetah Hunt coaster that he is far too little to ride. Just watching it go by is enough for Eli. Loves cheetahs. Jackal came out of nowhere though. Its like we were doing this bracket and all of a sudden he decided he loves jackals. We have never seen one in person, but there is a jackal in the Lion Guard, so maybe that is why. He did have mandrills in the Elite 8 solely because that is what Rafiki is.

Zebras are probably his 4th favorite animal from Africa, but they went up against giraffes in the Sweet 16. Nothing was beating that giraffe.

We had a celebrity guest picker in our house while we were filling these out in my Mother in Law. We will share her bracket next.

Noland calls his grandmas by their hair color so this is the bracket for his red-hair grandma. Notice the RH grandma at the top of this bracket. He was beyond excited that his grandma wanted to do a bracket as well. She chose the lion as her top animal which is what I imagine most people would. However, she was the only one to do so in our brackets. Lions made the finals several times, but only won with red hair grandma.

I thought Noland loved lemurs until I saw his grandma's bracket. She had them all the way to the finals. She had two completely opposite things in her finals and her final four. Half of her final four was humongous with lions and elephants. The other half are super tiny in bushbabies and lemurs. Just goes to show that the animals we love come in all shapes and sizes.

After seeing what Jenna's mom picked, let's check in on what the boys' mom picked.

Jenna had the most predictable bracket if you know us I believe. It went according to chalk with all 4 1 seeds making it and everyone knew that would be her final four. We also knew that elephant would be the ultimate champion for her. She really loves all of those four animals, but especially the elephant. Nothing she selected surprised me in the least and I could have predicted her entire bracket for you. Well, maybe Klipspringer over Honey Badger was a bit of a surprise, but not really.

Jenna was the only one of us to select all four 1 seeds for the final. She was the only one to have Gorillas in the Final Four. She was also the only one to write stork when choosing between the Maribou and the Shoebill Stork. I guess she just didn't want to choose.

Finally, here is my bracket

Rhinos are my favorite animal, but after seeing that cheetah run i questioned it for a minute. Seriously, it was amazing!! Rhinos are still the coolest though. I don't know what it is about rhinos, but I just absolutely love them. They are just so fun to look at and impressive when they charge. Fun fact a group of rhinos is actually called a charge of rhinos.

I struggles the most with the teeth bracket. I kept going back and forth with several matchups. I wanted to pick the lion, especially after seeing it eat. Then I wanted to pick the leopard because of its pure power while still being graceful. Ultimately, I went with Hyena because when I see Hyenas I get more excited than when I see lions or leopards. Why that is I do not know, but I enjoy them. They are very neat and I saw them laugh on a night safari at Animal Kingdom. That is still one of my favorite experiences ever.

My toughest selection in the bracket was honey badger over hippo. That was a really tough one. I was able to pick honey badger because when I finally saw one at Naples Zoo it was probably the most excited I was to see an animal. Well, most excited other than when I get to see my kid's reactions. Picking honey badger over hippo was just tough because hippos are also in my top 5. They are so amazing to look at and I just wasn't sure. In fact I am still not sure. It's more even than anything with those two. However, I was more excited to see a honey badger. Also Bunga is a honey badger and Beshte is a hippo and Bunga is cooler than Beshte.

Finally, I wanted to say that the elephant was almost knocked out early because of the Nile Monitor and also the shoebill stork. How the shoebill stork changes his eyes is so cool and the monitor is just a neat animal.

So who is the ultimate winner for the family?

So the top 5 were
1. Lion (20 spaces)
T-2. Cheetah/Rhino tie (19 spaces)
T-4. Giraffe/Honey Badger tie (15 spaces)

Making the lion not only the king of the jungle, but the king of our brackets.

That feeding was pretty awesome!!!
Photo from Catty Shack Ranch in Jacksonville, FL

What did you think of our brackets?
Want to fill one out yourself?
Would you pick differently?
Got any brackets you want us to make?
Leave us a comment and let us know....

Next up for you is our College Baseball Tournament bracket that starts the day of our bracket being released. Enjoy Omaha!!!!

Have a great week!

-Noland