Musk lugs
| Musk lugs | ||||||||||||
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Musk Ibex ( Nesotragus moschatus ) |
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| Nesotragus moschatus | ||||||||||||
| From Düben , 1846 | ||||||||||||
The musk ram ( Nesotragus moschatus , syn .: Neotragus moschatus ) - also called Suni - is a dwarf antelope living in East Africa . The musk ram is one of the smallest antelope species in the world. It gets its name from the conspicuous scent glands on the face, which smell strongly of musk.
features
You rarely get to see the shy goat. With a weight of up to eight kilograms and a shoulder height of up to 40 centimeters, it is smaller than the Sharpe old buck , but you could confuse it with this one because of the strong, red-brown, white-speckled coat that is white on the belly. The tail has a white tip and is constantly moving. Since the ears are pink on the inside, they appear almost transparent. Males have short, straight, strongly curled horns, they also have a conspicuous gland in front of each eye.
Only the male develops horns.
Way of life
Musk rams are so-called selectors , which means that they only eat certain nutrient-rich plants. They graze in the herbaceous layer and on low bushes. Musk rams only occur in dry thickets or gallery forests with dense undergrowth . They are active during the cooler time of the day and at night. The male tied to a territory leads one to four females. It's downright territorial. The zoologist CA Spinage reports of an encounter with a captive musk ram that attacked him without hesitation when he entered his enclosure. Despite the small size of the attacker, he had to retreat.
distribution
The musk ram lives in the dry savannahs along the east coast of Africa. It occurs in the nature reserves St. Lucia Complex , Kruger Park , Mana Pools , Arusha National Park , Kilimanjaro , Mt. Kenya and Amboseli .
Although its meat is considered to be less tasty than that of other rams, the musk ram has become rare in large parts of its range.
The musk ram is one of the few wild mammals on the island of Zanzibar - the populations living here form their own subspecies ( Nesotragus moschatus moschatus ) and are particularly threatened.
literature
- CA Spinage: The Natural History of Antelopes. Croom Helm, London 1986, ISBN 0-7099-4441-1 .
Web links
- Nesotragus moschatus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2013.