The phrase Big Five game was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five large mammals that were sought in Africa.  The term is still used in most tourist and wildlife guides that discuss African wildlife safaris.

The collection consists of the lion, the African elephant, the African Buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros, either the black rhinoceros or the white rhinoceros.  The members of the big five were chosen for the difficulty in hunting them and not their size, which is why the leopard is on the list and the enormous hippopotamus is not.