Antelopes

The Addax (also cal­led Men­des ante­lope) is com­p­le­tely white, espe­cially in spring and sum­mer, except for the facial fea­tu­res. Sculp­tu­res and pic­tu­res show that Men­des ante­lopes in anci­ent Egypt were important sacri­fi­cial ani­mals. This ante­lope spe­cies is threa­te­ned with extinc­tion today. In wes­tern and cen­tral Sahara, where they live, they are lar­gely dri­ven out by live­stock and hun­ting.

There are many sto­ries about the Ara­bian or the White Oryx. People used to think that this majestic ani­mal had magi­cal abi­li­ties: The flesh was sup­po­sed to give extra­or­di­nary power and make it insen­si­tive to thirst. It was also belie­ved that the blood hel­ped against snake bites. The­re­fore, people have hun­ted this ante­lope a lot. They are clas­si­fied as vul­ne­ra­ble by the Inter­na­tio­nal Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN).

This beau­ti­ful, medium-sized ante­lope with ele­gantly cur­ved horns can run up to 80 km/h! She lives in the open land­s­ca­pes of India, Nepal and Pakis­tan, where she can­not pre­vent a thi­cket from run­ning and jum­ping. The black­buck or Indian ante­lope is socia­ble. The ani­mals are in herds with 15 to 50 mem­bers toge­ther. Every herd has a lea­der.

The East Afri­can Bongo inha­b­its tro­pi­cal moun­tain rain­fo­rests in which it is well camou­fla­ged with its brown fur with white stri­pes from pre­da­tors. Fema­les live toge­ther with their off­spring in small groups. Males are loners. In the East Afri­can bongo, both sexes carry spi­ral horns. These do not serve as a defense against pre­da­tors but are used only in intra­s­pe­cies batt­les. The East Afri­can Bongo is clas­si­fied as an end­an­ge­red spe­cies on the IUCN Red List of End­an­ge­red Spe­cies (Inter­na­tio­nal Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature and Natu­ral Resour­ces).

The Eland ante­lope is the lar­gest and hea­viest ante­lope spe­cies. The males reach a shoul­der height of 1.5 meters and a weight up to a ton! The fema­les are slightly smal­ler and ligh­ter than the males. What you will notice imme­dia­tely in both sexes are the tightly twis­ted horns. All eland ante­lopes have a tawny fur with 2 to 15 white hori­zon­tal stri­pes. Ano­ther spe­cial fea­ture is the black stripe on their back.

In the family of water­bucks, there is a spe­cies that imme­dia­tely cat­ches the eye of the obser­ver: it’s the Ellipse water­buck. You recog­nize them by their white cir­cu­lar dra­wing on the rump, which also gave these ani­mals their name. The second part of their name reveals where these ani­mals like to be: close to and often in the water! Their coat has a water-repel­lent oil layer that pro­tects them from mois­ture.

The Gems­bok, also cal­led South Afri­can Oryx or Ibex, is the heral­dic ani­mal of Nami­bia. Maybe you won­der why this parti­cu­lar ani­mal was cho­sen? There are many rea­sons for this choice: The South Afri­can oryx is opti­mally adap­ted to the adverse con­di­ti­ons of the desert and is the­re­fore seen as a sym­bol of ten­a­city and fru­ga­lity. Gems­bok can with­stand tem­pe­ra­tu­res in excess of 45 deg­rees Cel­sius wit­hout any pro­b­lems and will spend a long time with very little water.

The Great Kudu is an Afri­can ante­lope that occurs in eas­tern and sou­thern Africa. Its habi­tat is mainly tree and grass­lands sav­anna. It feeds on grass, lea­ves and twigs. The males of the Great Kudu can reach a weight of up to 300 kilo­grams and the fema­les weigh about 200 kilo­grams.

The petite Impala or Black-rum­ped Ante­lope inha­b­its the open sav­an­nas in Kenya, Uganda, Tanza­nia, Zam­bia, Mozam­bi­que, Zim­b­abwe, as far as Bots­wana and in nor­theas­tern South Africa. The name Impala comes from the Zulu lan­guage. An Impala rea­ches the size of a fal­low deer with about 90 centi­me­ters, but looks slim­mer and more fili­g­ree. A typi­cal dis­tin­gu­is­hing fea­ture of these ani­mals are the black spots on the feet and an elon­ga­ted, white spot above the eyes.

Kafue Lechwe, a genus of water­buck and a sub­s­pe­cies of the Sou­thern Lechwe, is ende­mic to the Kafue Flats, Zam­bia and can also be found in small parts in Angola and Bots­wana. This ante­lope spe­cies lives on swamps and in floo­ded areas. It feeds almost exclu­si­vely on marsh gras­ses. To move well in the muddy ground, they have deve­lo­ped widely sprea­da­ble claws that keep them from sin­king. Take a close look at their coat color: the Kafue lechwe is red­dish brown at the back and white at the bot­tom of the belly, the fore­legs have black stri­pes.