Fun Facts:
-Royal antelope calves are so small, they can rest in the average person's open hand.
-The dik dik’s distinctive snout is elongated and somewhat flexible.
-A gerenuk’s pointed muzzle helps the graceful antelope pick the delicate leaves of acacias from among the thorns.
-Desert antelope, like addaxes and Dama gazelles, do not need to drink water—they get moisture from their food.
-The rabbit-size royal antelope was referred to as king of the hares, which morphed into the moniker of royal antelope. Liberians refer to it as a jackrabbit or tricky-jack, and it is revered for its speed and nimbleness.
-Male impalas have a strange way of attracting females or warning off other males: they repeatedly stick their tongue out in a display known as tongue flashing.
-The highest jumper in relation to body side is the klipspringer: at about 2 feet (60 centimeters) tall, this tiny antelope can jump 15 times its own height.
-Rheboks have a fast gallop, up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour and are good jumpers and climbers. This is probably the reason the popular Reebok sneakers were named after them.
-The springbok is the nation animal of South Africa and the name of a South African rugby team.
-The gnu migration is a big tourist attraction in East Africa. More than 1 million gnu migrate through the area as they follow shifting rainy seasons for grass and water.
-The duiker’s name comes from the Afrikaans/Dutch word for diver and refers to its practice of diving into tangles of shrubbery.
It’s all about horns…
All antelope have horns; in some species they are only found on the males, whereas in others, such as gazelles, both males and females have them. The horns are made of a bony core encased in a hard material made largely of keratin (the same substance our fingernails are made of!). Horns are permanently attached, unlike a deer’s antlers, which are shed each year.
Some horns, like those of the addax and blackbuck, twist in interesting spirals; others are ridged or corrugated, like those of the impala and the sable antelope; still others grow in wide curves with a sharp point on the end, like those of the gnu.
…and hooves
Hooves are another specialty for many antelope. Each hoof has a split down the middle, dividing the hoof into two toes. Lechwes, which live in swampy areas, have long, pointed hooves to give them sure footing in the water. Slender-horned gazelles have sturdy, wide hooves for walking on the shifting sand of their desert habitat. And klipspringer have tiny, rounded hooves with a pad in the center that acts like a suction cup, allowing these nimble antelope to hop from rock to rock without falling.
At home in a habitat
The majority of antelope are native to Africa, but there are some species living in the Middle East and Asia. Most live in open grasslands, but the smaller duikers, most sunis, and royal antelope live in Central Africa’s rain forests or wooded areas, dik diks live in arid bush country with heavy vegetation, and mountain sunis dwell in the highland forests of southern Kenya. Waterbuck, as their name suggests, and lechwe are never far from water.
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