Bluebuck
Bluebuck Temporal range:
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One of four existing bluebuck skins, Vienna Museum of Natural History . The overall blue colouration is caused by the lighting.
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Family: | Bovidae |
Subfamily: | Hippotraginae |
Genus: | Hippotragus |
Species: | †H. leucophaeus
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Binomial name | |
†Hippotragus leucophaeus (Pallas, 1766)
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Historical distribution and Holocene and Pleistocene fossil sites of bluebuck (blue), sable antelope (red), and roan antelope (yellow) in southern Africa | |
Synonyms[2][3] | |
List
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The bluebuck (
The largest mounted bluebuck specimen is 119 centimetres (47 in) tall at the
During the Late Pleistocene, the bluebuck was common across South Africa, but by the time Europeans encountered the bluebuck in the 17th century, it was already uncommon, perhaps due to its preferred grassland habitat having been reduced to a 4,300-square-kilometre (1,700 sq mi) range, mainly along the southern coast of South Africa. Sea level changes during the early Holocene may also have contributed to its decline by disrupting the population. However, it appears that, for at least 400,000 years, populations of the bluebuck may have been adapted for a small effective population size, exhibiting inbreeding avoidance, and high genetic purging.[4] The first published mention of the bluebuck is from 1681, and few descriptions of the animal were written while it existed. The few 18th-century illustrations appear to have been based on stuffed specimens. Hunted by European settlers, the bluebuck became extinct around 1800; it was the first large African mammal to face extinction in historical times, followed by the quagga in 1883. Only four mounted skins remain, in museums in Leiden, Stockholm, Vienna, and Paris, along with horns and possible bones in various museums.
Taxonomy
According to German zoologist Erna Mohr's 1967 book about the bluebuck, the 1719 account of the Cape of Good Hope published by the traveler Peter Kolbe appears to be the first publication containing a mention of the species. Kolbe also included an illustration, which Mohr believed was based on memory and notes. In 1975, Husson and Holthuis examined the original Dutch version of Kolbe's book and concluded that the illustration did not depict a bluebuck, but rather a greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), and that the error was due to a mistranslation into German. The first published illustration of the bluebuck is therefore instead a depiction of a horn from 1764.[5][6] It has also been pointed out that the animal had already been mentioned (as "blaue Böcke") on a list of South African mammals in 1681.[7]
The Welsh naturalist
In 1776, the German zoologist
In 1846, the Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall moved the bluebuck and its closest relatives to the genus Hippotragus; he had originally named this genus for the roan antelope (H. equinus) in 1845.[12] This revision was commonly accepted by other writers, such as the British zoologists Philip Sclater and Oldfield Thomas, who restricted the genus Antilope to the blackbuck (A. cervicapra) in 1899.[3] In 1914, the name Hippotragus was submitted for conservation (so older, unused genus names could be suppressed) to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) with the bluebuck as the type species. However, the original 1845 naming of the genus with the roan antelope as a single species was overlooked and later suppressed by the ICZN, leading to some taxonomic confusion. In 2001, the British ecologist Peter J. Grubb proposed that the ICZN should rescind its suppression of the 1845 naming and make the roan antelope the type species of Hippotragus, since too little is known about the bluebuck for it to be a reliable type species.[12] This was accepted by the commission in 2003.[13]
The common names "bluebuck" and "blue antelope" are English for the original
Preserved specimens
Four mounted skins of the bluebuck remain: the adult male in Leiden, a young male at the
In 2021, the German geneticist Elisabeth Hempel and colleagues examined ten bluebuck specimens to resolve their identities, and found that only four of them were bluebucks. The skins in Stockholm and Vienna were confirmed as belonging to bluebucks, as were skull fragments in Leiden that may belong to the lectotype specimen, and the horns in Uppsala. Four assigned skulls (those in Glasgow, Leiden, Paris and Berlin) were shown to belong to either sable or roan antelopes, as were two pairs of horns (in Cape Town and St. Andrews). As a result, the bluebuck is rarer in museum collections than previously though, and no complete skulls are known of the species. The researchers pointed out that there are four more potential specimens that could be confirmed through testing; two skulls in Berlin, a pair of horns in London, and either a skull or pair of horns in Brussels.[18] In 2023, the pair of horns in London were confirmed by Hempel and colleagues to belong to a blue antelope using A-DNA, but four other candidates were shown to be roan antelopes.[20]
Evolution
Based on studies of
In 1996, an analysis of
The
Robinson and colleagues, 1996:[21]
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Themudo and Campos, 2017:[22]
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Based on their larger sample of specimens, Hempel and colleagues also found the bluebuck genetically closest to the sable antelope in 2021.
Description
The adult male bluebuck in Leiden is 119 centimetres (47 in) tall at the withers, and is possibly the largest known specimen.[24] According to Sclater and Thomas, the tallest specimen is the one in Paris, a male that stands 110 centimetres (45 in) at the shoulder; the specimen in Vienna, on the other hand, is the shortest, a 100-centimetre (40 in) tall female. The bluebuck was notably smaller than the roan and sable antelopes, and therefore the smallest member of its genus.[3]
The
As the old skins are presumably faded, it may be difficult to reconstruct the original colour of the bluebuck from them.[25] Pennant observed that the eyes had white patches below them and the underbelly was white; the coat was a "fine blue" in living specimens, while it changed to "bluish grey, with a mixture of white" in dead animals. He also suggested that the length of the bluebuck's hair and the morphology of its horns formed a link between antelopes and goat. He went on to describe the ears as pointed and over 23 centimetres (9 in) long and the tail as 18 centimetres (7 in) long, terminating in a 6 centimetres (2.4 in) long tuft.[8]
The horns of the bluebuck were significantly shorter and thinner than those of the roan antelope, but perhaps proportionally longer.[3] The horns of the Leiden specimen measure 56.5 centimetres (22.2 in) along the curve.[24] Pennant gave the horn length as 51 centimetres (20 in). He added that the horns, sharp and curving backward, consist of twenty rings.[8] The horns of the bluebuck appear to have hollow pedicles (bony structures from which the horns emerge).[26]
Behaviour and ecology
The bluebuck, as Klein puts it, became extinct before "qualified scientists could make observations on live specimens". According to historical accounts, the bluebuck formed groups of up to 20 individuals.[7] Similarities to the roan and the sable antelopes in terms of dental morphology make it highly probable that the bluebuck was predominantly a selective grazer, and fed mainly on grasses.[27][28] The row of premolars was longer than in others of the genus, implying the presence of dicots in the diet.[29] A 2013 study by the Australian palaeontologist J. Tyler Faith and colleagues noted the scarcity of morphological evidence to show that the bluebuck could have survived the summers in the western margin of the Cape Floristic Region (CFR), when the grasses are neither palatable nor nutritious. This might have induced a west-to-east migration, because the eastern margin receives rainfall throughout the year while precipitation in the western margin is limited to winter.[29]
An 18th-century account suggests that females might have left their newborn calves in isolation and returned regularly to suckle them until the calves were old enough to join herds, which is similar to the behaviour of roan and sable antelopes. Akin to other grazing antelopes, the bluebuck probably calved mainly where rainfall, and thus the availability of grasses, peaked. Such locations could be the western margin of the CFR during winter and the eastern margin of the CFR during summer. Faith and colleagues found that the occurrence of juveniles in bluebuck fossils decreases linearly from the west to the east, indicating that most births took place in the western CFR; due to the preference for rainfall, it may be further assumed that most births occurred during winter, when the western CFR receives most of its rainfall. The annual west-to-east migration would have followed in summer, consistent with the greater number of older juveniles in the east that would have joined herds. Juvenile fossils also occur in other places across the range, but appear to be concentrated in the western CFR.[29]
Distribution and habitat
In 1974, Klein studied the fossils of Hippotragus species in South Africa. Most of these were found to represent the bluebuck and the roan antelope. The fossil record suggested that the bluebuck occurred in large numbers during the
A 2011 study suggested that low sea levels facilitated migrations for large mammals;[32] therefore the rise in sea levels with the beginning of the Holocene would have led to fragmented bluebuck populations and distanced many populations from the western coast (fossils dating to this period are scarce in the western coast but have been recorded from the southern coast). Thus, a mass extinction could have taken place, leaving behind mainly the populations that remained in the resource-rich western CFR.[29] The causes of the drastic decline in bluebuck populations just before the 15th and 16th centuries have not been investigated; competition with livestock and habitat deterioration could have been major factors in its depletion.[19]
Faith and colleagues further suggested that the bluebuck, being a grazer, probably favoured grassland habitats.
Relationship with humans
Extinction
Due to the small range of the bluebuck at the time of European settlement of the Cape region in the 17th and 18th centuries compared to the much wider area evidenced by fossil remains, it is thought the species was already in decline before this time. The bluebuck was the sole species of Hippotragus in the region until 70,000–35,000 years ago, but the roan antelope appears to have become predominant about 11,000 years ago. According to Robertson and colleagues in 1996, this might have coincided with grasslands being replaced by, for example, brush and forest, thereby reducing what is presumed to be the preferred habitat of the bluebuck, the grasslands.[21]
Faith and colleagues stated in 2013 that the results of the sea level changes in the early Holocene may also have played a role in the decline of the species, and left only the southern population to survive into historical times.[29] Hempel and colleagues found a low level of genetic diversity between the four confirmed bluebuck specimens in 2021, which confirms its population size was low by the time of European colonisation.[18] In 2022, Hempel and colleagues demonstrated that there had been ancient gene flow from the roan into the blue antelope, and that the genomic diversity was much lower in the latter. This indicates the species was already vulnerable due to low population size in at least the early Holocene due to habitat loss and range fragmentation, and the impact of colonial-era humans was probably the decisive factor that led to its extinction.[23] While there is no doubt that European colonisation was the deciding factor in the demise of the bluebuck, Hempel et al. determined in 2024 that for at least 400,000 years, bluebuck populations had become adapted to low effective population size. Bluebuck genomes evinced high genetic purging, and even seemed unaffected by glacial cycles and changes in habitat size.[4]
The bluebuck was hunted to extinction by European settlers; in 1774 Thunberg noted that it was becoming increasingly rare.
Cultural significance
The bluebuck rock paintings from the Caledon river valley have been attributed to
A South African fable, The Story of the Hare, mentions a bluebuck (referred to as inputi) that, among other animals, is appointed to guard a kraal.[41] The bluebuck is also mentioned in French novelist Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863); the animal is described as a "superb animal of a pale-bluish colour shading upon the gray, but with the belly and the insides of the legs as white as the driven snow".[42]
References
Citations
- ^ . Retrieved 19 November 2021.
- ^ Grubb 2005, p. 718.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Sclater & Thomas 1899, pp. 4–12.
- ^ .
- ^ a b c Husson, A.M.; Holthuis, L.B. (1975). "The earliest figures of the blaauwbok, Hippotragus leucophaeus (Pallas, 1766) and of the greater kudu, Tragelaphus strepsiceros (Pallas, 1766)". Zoologische Mededelingen. 49 (5): 57–63.
- ^ a b Stuart & Stuart 1996, p. 87.
- ^ a b c d e Rookmaaker, L. (1992). "Additions and revisions to the list of specimens of the extinct blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus)" (PDF). Annals of the South African Museum. 102 (3): 131–41.
- ^ a b c Pennant, T. (1771). Synopsis of Quadrupeds. London, UK: B. & J. White. p. 24 – via University of Oxford. Text Archive
- ^ de Buffon 1778.
- ^ Pallas, P.S. (1766). P.S. Pallas Medicinae Doctoris Miscellanea zoologica (in Latin). Apud Petrum van Cleef. p. 4.
- ^ a b Husson, A. M; Holthuis, L.B. (1969). "On the type of Antilope leucophaea preserved in the collection of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie Leiden". Zoologische Mededelingen. 44: 147–157.
- ^ ISSN 0007-5167.
- ISSN 0007-5167.
- ^ "Blauwbok, n." Dictionary of South African English. Dictionary Unit for South African English, 2018. Web. 25 February 2019.
- ^ "Hippotragus". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
- ^ Jobling 2010, p. 224.
- ^ Groves, C.; Westwood, C.R. (1995). "Skulls of the blaauwbok Hippotragus leucophaeus" (PDF). Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde. 60: 314–8.
- ^ PMID 33483538.
- ^ a b c d e f Klein, R.G. (1974). "On the taxonomic status, distribution and ecology of the blue antelope, Hippotragus leucophaeus". Annals of the South African Museum. 65 (4): 99–143.
- ISSN 1616-5047.
- ^ PMID 8643125.
- ^ .
- ^ PMID 36322483.
- ^ a b c van Broggen, A.C. (1959). "Illustrated notes on some extinct South African ungulates" (PDF). South African Journal of Science: 197–200.
- ^ Groves & Grubb 2011, p. 198.
- ^ Vrba, E.S. (1987). "New species and a new genus of Hippotragini (Bovidae) from Makapansgat limeworks" (PDF). Palaentologica Africana. 26 (5): 47–58.
- S2CID 84271518.
- ^ .
- ^ S2CID 55154351.
- ^ S2CID 40104332.
- ^ JSTOR 3887969.
- .
- S2CID 83575968.
- ^ Deacon, Hendley & Lambrechts 1983, pp. 116–138.
- JSTOR 3887730.
- ^ Dolan Jr., J. (1964). "Notes on Hippotragus niger roosevelti" (PDF). Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde. 29 (5): 309–12.
- S2CID 4132902.
- ^ IUCN (2008). "Equus quagga ssp. quagga". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2008. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
- ^ Stuart & Stuart 1996, p. 14.
- ^ Klein, R. G. (1987). "The extinct blue antelope". Sagittarius. 2 (3): 20–23.
- ^ Honey 2013, p. PT55.
- ^ Verne 2015, p. 75.
Sources
- Deacon, H.J.; Hendley, Q.B.; Lambrechts, J.J.N., eds. (1983). "Palaeoenvironmental implications of Quaternary large mammals in the Fynbos region". Fynbos Palaeoecology: A Preliminary Synthesis (PDF). Pretoria, South Africa: ISBN 978-0-7988-2953-3. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
- Google books.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0093-8. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
- OCLC 62265494.
- Honey, J.A. (2013). South-African Folk-Tales. Worcestershire, UK: Read Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4733-8515-3. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
- Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names from Aalge to Zusii. London, UK: ISBN 978-1-4081-3326-2.
- Sclater, Philip; Thomas, Oldfield (1899). The Blue-Buck. Vol. IV. London, UK: R. H. Porter. pp. 4–12. Retrieved June 13, 2016 – via Internet Archive.
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ignored (help) - Stuart, Chris; Stuart, Tilde (1996). Africa's Vanishing Wildlife (1st ed.). Shrewsbury, UK: Swan Hill Press. ISBN 978-1-85310-817-4.
- ISBN 978-1-5168-5211-6. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
External links
- Interactive 3D scan of the Vienna specimen at Sketchfab
- Mohr, E.; Nager (1967). "Notes about the "Glasgow Skull" by Erna Mohr in 1967" (PDF). Translated by R. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 19, 2016. Retrieved June 11, 2016.
- Blue Antelope Correspondences Archived 2020-11-26 at the Wayback Machine