Tragelaphus strepsiceros

• Overview
• Interesting Facts
• Common Names
• Description
• Biology
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Overview

The horns of the Greater Kudu are prized by sportsmen for their trophy value. Farmers sometimes kill the animals because they damage crops , and the animals are harvested as a meat source. These factors , along with habitat destruction, have greatly reduced their range and overall numbers.

Interesting Facts

Common Names

Click on the language to view common names.

Description

Physical Description

Habitat

The Greater Kudu prefers woodlands and thickets, especially the hilly rough terrain of East, Central and South Africa.

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 1,670 meters (0 to 5,479 feet).[1]

Ecology: Preferred habitat includes mixed scrub woodland (it is one of the few large mammals that thrives in settled areas - in the scrub woodland and bush that reclaims abandoned fields and degraded pastures-), acacia, and mopane bush on lowlands, hills , and mountains. Recorded to 2,400 m in Ethiopia (Yalden et al. 1996). Kudu are browsers ; they can exist for long periods without drinking, obtaining sufficient moisture from their food, but become water dependent at times when the vegetation is very dry (Owen-Smith in press ).[2].

List of Habitats:

•     1     Forest   
  
•     1.5     Forest - Subtropical/Tropical Dry   
  
•     2     Savanna   
  
•     2.1     Savanna - Dry   
  
•     3     Shrubland   
  
•     3.5     Shrubland - Subtropical/Tropical Dry   
  
•     8     Desert   
  
•     14     Artificial/Terrestrial   
  
•     14.3     Artificial/Terrestrial - Plantations   
[more info]

Biology

Diet

This antelope feeds mainly by browsing and is able to pick out scanty, high quality foods from much poorer surrounding vegetation. It eats fruits, seed pods, flowers and leaves, often choosing plants that other herbivores reject because of unpleasant taste.

Reproduction

Individual females separate from their groups to give birth and then rejoin the groups as their calves grow. The young tend to be born during the early part of the wet season (January-March). Single offspring weigh about eight pounds and are born after a gestation period of seven to eight months.

Captive Greater Kudu have lived twenty years.

Behavior

The Greater Kudu is extremely wary and depends on woodlands and thickets for concealment as it browses .

The animal has the often fatal habit of stopping after a short run from danger to look back. It is most active at dawn, dusk, and during the night.

The gait of the Greater Kudu may appear clumsy, but its leaping ability is remarkable.

Greatly enlarged ears suggest an acute sense of hearing. The Greater Kudu seldom vocalizes except for an alarm bark and a few mother/infant calls .

Taxonomy

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 22-Apr-2004

Similar Species

Members of the genus Tragelaphus

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 20 species and subspecies in this genus:

T. angasii (Lowland Nyala) · T. buxtoni (Mountain Nyala) · T. derbianus (Giant Eland) · T. derbianus derbianus (Western Giant Eland) · T. derbianus gigas (Eastern Giant Eland) · T. eurycerus (And Kudus) · T. eurycerus eurycerus (Lowland Bongo) · T. eurycerus isaaci (Mountain Bongo) · T. imberbis (Lesser Kudu) · T. imberbis australis (Lesser Kudu) · T. imberbis imberbis (Lesser Kudu) · T. oryx (Common Eland) · T. scriptus (Harnessed Antelope) · T. scriptus scriptus (Bushbuck) · T. spekii (Sitatunga) · T. spekii gratus (Sitatunga) · T. spekii spekii (Marshbuck) · T. strepsiceros (Greater Kudu) · T. strepsiceros strepsiceros (Greater Kudu) · T. tragelaphus scriptus (Harnessed Antelope)

More Info

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Further Reading

• Biosphere Reserves, Compilation 4, October 1986: programme on man and the biosphere (MAB) IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre url p. 269, p. 361.
• Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). London: BM(NH) url p. 171, p. 222, p. 244, p. 289, p. 297, p. 298, p. 301, p. 302, p. 303, p. 304, p. 51, p. 52, p. 53, p. 56, p. 57, p. 62, p. 63, p. 64, p. 65, p. 67, p. 69, p. 78.
• Catalogue of the ungulate mammals in the British Museum (Natural History) by R. Lydekker. London, Printed by order of the Trustees, 1913-16. url p. 282.
• Do we owe our intelligence to a predatory past? / C.K. Brain. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 2001. url p. 18.
• Ecologically sensitive sites in Africa / Washington, DC, USA: World Bank, 1993. url p. 22.
• Field Museum of Natural History bulletin. Chicago, Field Museum of Natural History, [1930]-c1990. url p. 5.
• IUCN Directory of Afrotropical Protected Areas IUCN, UNEP url p. 1001, p. 1002, p. 1033, p. 121, p. 123, p. 124, p. 129, p. 15, p. 17, p. 18, p. 186, p. 187, p. 19, p. 190, p. 192, p. 193, p. 196, p. 289, p. 293, p. 305, p. 369, p. 371, p. 374, p. 376, p. 377, p. 379, p. 380, p. 435, p. 436, p. 439, p. 447, p. 45, p. 450, p. 452, p. 454, p. 456, p. 459, p. 5, p. 584, p. 588, p. 591, p. 593, p. 6, p. 602, p. 607, p. 610, p. 611, p. 637, p. 640, p. 645, p. 652, p. 660, p. 678, p. 680, p. 685, p. 690, p. 691, p. 702, p. 712, p. 714, p. 725, p. 726, p. 727, p. 728, p. 754, p. 765, p. 798, p. 816, p. 817, p. 834, p. 836, p. 850, p. 854, p. 882, p. 915, p. 934, p. 941, p. 956, p. 972, p. 980, p. 988, p. 989, p. 990, p. 992, p. 994, p. 996, p. 999.
• Nature. London, etc., Macmillan Journals Ltd., etc. url p. 397.
• Private protected areas: a preliminary study of initiatives to conserve biodiversity in selected African countries WCMC url p. 15, p. 19, p. 26, p. 29, p. 37, p. 51.
• Proboscidea: a monograph of the discovery, evolution, migration and extinction of the mastodonts and elephants of the world / by Henry Fairfield Osborn; edited by Mabel Rice Percy. New York: Published on the J. Pierpont Morgan Fund by the trustees of the American Museum of Natural History: 1936-1942. url p. 1435.
• Proceedings of the United States National Museum. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, [etc.] url p. 573, p. 594.
• Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. London: Academic Press, [etc.], 1833-1965. url p. 18, p. 323, p. 470, p. 5, p. 727.
• Protected Landscapes: experience around the world. Prepared for the International Symposium on Protected Landscapes, Grange-over-Sands, England 5-10 October 1987 IUCN url p. 370, p. 372, p. 373.
• Readings in mammalogy / selected from the original literature and introduced with comments by J. Knox Jones, Jr., and Sydney Anderson. [Lawrence, Kans.]: Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, 1970. url p. 369.
• Selected readings in mammalogy: selected from the original literature and introduced with comments / by J. Knox Jones, Jr., Sydney Anderson, and Robert S. Hoffmann. Lawrence, Kan.: Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, 1976. url p. 389.
• Sir Victor Brooke, sportsman & naturalist: a memoir of his life and extracts from his letters and journals. Edited by Oscar Leslie Stephen. With a chapter on his researches in natural history by Sir William H. Flower. London, Murray, 1894. url p. 36.
• The Marine Mammal Commission compendium of selected treaties, international agreements, and other relevant documents on marine resources, wildlife, and the environment / compiled by Richard L. Wallace. Washington, D.C.: The Commission; 1994 url p. 564.
• The coccidian parasites (Protozoa, Apicomplexa) of carnivores / Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1981. url p. 143, p. 248.
• The geographical distribution of animals: with a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the earth's surface / by Alfred Russel Wallace; in two volumes; with maps and illustrations. New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1876. url p. 261.
• The mammals of Africa: country lists. Draft document IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre, UNEP, WWF url .
• Zoologist. London.1843-1916 url p. 4123, p. 4399, p. 4578.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed March 27, 2012.
• IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. . Downloaded on January 28, 2012.
• IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group 2008. Tragelaphus strepsiceros. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloadedon 05February2012.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 26, 2007:

• Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Vertebrate specimens
• Marine Science Institute, UCSB, Paleobiology Database
• Michigan State University Museum, Vertebrate specimens
• Museum of Texas Tech University
• , Mammal specimens
• University of Alaska Museum of the North, University of New Mexico Museum of Southwestern Biology Mammal Collection
• University of Helsinki, Department of Applied Biology, Animal observations
• University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
• , Mammal specimens
• University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural History, Mammal specimens
• University of Washington Burke Museum, Mammal Specimens

Identifiers

• Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 106193
• Catalogue of Life Accepted Name Code: ITS-625134
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 13528652
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN): 625134
• IUCN ID: 246853
• Natural Heritage Network Species Identifier: AMALE12010
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 12275

Footnotes

1. Mean = 554.850 meters (1,820.374 feet), Standard Deviation = 939.880 based on 92 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]
2. IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group 2008. Tragelaphus strepsiceros. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 05 February 2012. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.