Bongo (antelope)
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Eastern bongo ( Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci ) |
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| Tragelaphus eurycerus | ||||||||||||
| ( Ogilby , 1837) |
The bongo ( Tragelaphus eurycerus ) is a species of African antelope . It differs most noticeably from its closest relatives, the lesser kudu ( Tragelaphus imberbis ), the greater kudu ( Tragelaphus strepsiceros ), the nyala antelope ( Tragelaphus angassii ) and the Sitatunga antelope ( Tragelaphus spekei ) in that it also differs from it the females wear horns. Because of this fact, it is occasionally assigned to its own genus Boocercus . A closer relationship with the eland is possible, as the horn-bearing females, the similar tail shape and the lack of inguinal glands speak for.
features
The shoulder height of the bongo is 1.25 meters. The males, weighing up to 280 kg, are considerably heavier than the females, who can weigh up to 253 kg (data from wild catches from Kenya from 1971).
Both sexes wear a lyre-shaped, coiled horn that is up to 100 cm long. The horns of the females are thinner and narrower and run closer together than those of the bulls. The bright red to chestnut brown coat is marked on both sides of the body with 10 to 16 narrow, white stripes. Bulls are more vividly colored than the bongo cows. The coat gets darker with age. The stripes start in the back mane and extend to the belly / legs. The ventral side is darker, and the forelegs and head have a conspicuous black and white pattern.
Way of life
The bongo lives in dense forests, sometimes even in the bamboo thicket . Here the bongo is active during the day, but lives so hidden in the thickest bushes that you can hardly ever see it. The bongo feeds on various other plants in addition to foliage.
The males are solitary animals, the females live with their offspring in groups of around five to twenty animals. In zoos you can keep the animals in larger groups with an adult bull. It is essential to take the fearfulness of the animals into account.
Reproduction
A single cub is born after a gestation period of 282 to 291 days. Up to 1997, 1,090 bongo calves were born in zoological gardens (rearing rate 80%, rising trend). Only six of these births were multiple births (five twin births and one triplet birth). The birth weight is 17–27 kg, bull calves are usually heavier than cow calves; male twins weighed just under 20 kg (Zoo Wuppertal 1999). Newborn bongos have a shoulder height of 70 cm. The head-torso length was measured at around 90 cm. Bongo births take place all year round, there is no fixed throwing time.
Bongos become sexually mature at the age of just under two, and the majority of bongo cows born in zoos had their first calf when they were three years old. The fertility continues into old age, several bongo cows were still breeding at the age of 17. Bongo cows are exposed to heat for about three days every three weeks. The oestrus is difficult to recognize even for experienced zookeepers, the behavior of the bongo bull can be a clue. Several pairings per day are possible.
Bongos are not particularly long-lived animals; only a few bongos kept in zoos have lived to be 15 or older. The age record (bongo cow) is almost 21 years, the longest-lived zoo bongo bull was at least 16 years old (as of 1997).
Subspecies, distribution and endangerment
A distinction is made between two subspecies , the western bongo ( Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus ) and the eastern bongo or Kenya bongo ( Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci ( Thomas , 1902) ). The Western Bongo in the large rainforests of West and Central Africa is still considered to be relatively common (although its populations are also declining as a result of forest destruction) and is classified as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN ) . The Eastern Bongo only lives in small forest areas in Kenya and is critically endangered .
In Uganda , the Kenya bongo has been considered extinct since 1913 and is therefore endemic to the Kenyan mountain forests. About 100 animals live mainly in the Aberdare area , furthermore in the Mount Kenya massif , in the Mau forest and in the Eburu forest .
Bongos in zoos
Since the 1920s, bongos have found their way into zoological gardens as individual animals ( Paris Zoo , London Zoo , Rome Zoo , Bronx Zoo New York, Cleveland Zoo, Antwerp Zoo, Omaha Zoo). The first captive bongo was born in 1936 on a ship on the sea route from Kenya to London from a pregnant bongo cow. The first captive bongo calf was born at the Washington DC Zoo in 1971 . Since 1968 the bongo imports from Kenya have grown rapidly in zoological gardens with regular breeding successes. The first European breeding (pregnant imported bongo cow) took place in Antwerp Zoo in 1972, the first bongo calf conceived in Europe was born in 1973 in the Frankfurt Zoo . Bongos are now “common” zoo animals. In 1977 there were 73 bongos kept in zoos, in 1987 already 213. In 2008 the zoo database ISIS registered 490 bongos kept in scientifically managed zoos around the world, 232 of them in Europe. It is very likely that there are more bongos in zoos today than in Kenya. As early as 1991, only 5 percent of the bongos living in zoos were wild-caught.
There is a stud book for the Eastern Bongo ( Tragelaphus euryceros isaacii ) as part of the European Conservation Breeding Program . EEP coordinator is Jake Veasey at Woburn Safari Park, Woburn, Bedfordshire .
literature
- Clive A. Spinage: The Natural History of Antelopes. Croom Helm, London 1986, ISBN 0-7099-4441-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Spigane, p 172
- ↑ Tragelaphus eurycerus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2012. Posted by: Antelope Specialist Group, 2008. Accessed February 15, 2013.
- ↑ a b Tragelaphus eurycerus ssp. isaaci in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2012. Posted by: Antelope Specialist Group, 2008. Accessed February 15, 2013.
- ^ PJ Faria et al. : The use of non-invasive molecular techniques to confirm the presence of mountain bongo Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci populations in Kenya and preliminary inference of their mitochondrial genetic variation. Springer Science + Business Media BV 2011
