Kob
Kob | |
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Male At the Queen Elizabeth National Park | |
Female and calf At the Semliki Wildlife Reserve both K. k. thomasi in Uganda | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Family: | Bovidae |
Genus: | Kobus |
Species: | K. kob
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Binomial name | |
Kobus kob (Erxleben, 1777)
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Subspecies | |
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Geographic range |
The kob (Kobus kob) is an
Among the kobs of eastern Africa, the Ugandan kob (Kobus kob thomasi) appears on the coat of arms of Uganda,[4] and white-eared kobs (Kobus kob leucotis), found in South Sudan, southwest Ethiopia, and extreme northeast Uganda, participate in large-scale migrations.
Description
The kob resembles the impala but is more heavily built.[5] However, males are more robust than females and have horns.[6] Males have shoulder heights of 90–100 cm (3.0–3.3 ft) and an average weight of 94 kg (207 lb). Females have shoulder heights of 82–92 cm (2.69–3.02 ft) and weigh on average 63 kg (139 lb).[5][6] The pelage of the kob is typically golden to reddish-brown overall, but with the throat patch, eye ring, and inner ear being white, and the forelegs being black at the front.[5] Males get darker as they get older. Those of the white-eared kob (K. k. leucotis), which is found in the Sudd region (the easternmost part of their range), are strikingly different and overall dark, rather similar to the male Nile lechwe, though with a white throat and no pale patch from the nape to the shoulder. Both sexes have well-developed inguinal glands that secrete a yellow, waxy substance, as well as preorbital glands.[7]
Range
The kob is currently found in
Ecology
The kob's distribution from western Africa to central East Africa is patchy.
Social behavior and life history
Female Kob can live in herds numbering in the thousands. They move more and are more social than territorial males.[6] Females are at the front of the daily movements to water. Individuals learn where to go from their mothers. However, in larger herds, the females take their signals from other females.[6] Males are also present in the migratory herds and follow the females. All-male herds may number in the hundreds and accompany females as they travel during dry season.[6]
The social and reproductive organization of kob can vary. When in average or low population densities, males establish conventional
Conflicts between territorial Ugandan kob (K. k. thomasi) are usually settled with ritual and rarely actual fighting, whether in conventional territories or leks. A male usually needs only to walk in an erect posture towards the intruder to displace him.
Females have their first ovulation at 13–14 months of age and have 20- to 26-day intervals between estrous cycles until they are fertilized. Males from traditional territories and leks have different courtship strategies. Males of traditional territories will herd females and keep them in their territories.[16] Lek males try to do the same, but usually fail. They have to rely on advertising themselves. Kob courtship may last as short as two minutes, and copulation may only last a few seconds.[13] At leks, a female may mate up to 20 times with at least one of the central males in a day. After an eight-month gestation period and giving birth, estrus may commence 21–64 days later. For their first month, calves hide in dense vegetation. Mother and calf can identify each other by their noses. As they get older, calves gather into crèches. When they are three to four months old, the young enter the females' herds and stay with mothers until six to seven months, by which time they are weaned. When they mature, males join bachelors groups.[17]
Status
Kob populations have been reduced by hunting and human development.[18] The Uganda kob (Kobus kob thomasi) became extinct in southwestern Kenya and northwestern Tanzania due to the expansion of human settlements and agriculture. However, there are sizeable populations of this subspecies in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda and Garamba and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1]
Buffon's kob (Kobus kob kob) is protected in several parks, including
Once feared almost extinct because of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005), surveys in 2007 and later confirmed that several hundred thousand white-eared kobs (Kobus kob leucotis) survived. Together with tiang and Mongalla gazelles, they participate in one of the largest mammal migrations on Earth, numbering about 1.2 million individuals in total.[19] The white-eared kob is protected in Boma National Park and Bandingilo National Park in South Sudan,[1] and Gambella National Park in Ethiopia.[20]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group (2016). "Kobus kob". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T11036A50189609. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
- ^ Estes 1991, p. 91.
- ^
"Kob Antelope: Kobus Kob". ThinkQuest library. Archived from the originalon 2007-08-07. Retrieved 2007-06-16.
- ^ "The Coat of Arms", High Commission of Uganda in Pretoria, retrieved 17 December 2018
- ^ a b c Estes 1991, p. 98.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Kingdon, J. (1982). East African Mammals: An Atlas of Evolution in Africa, Volume 3, Part. C: Bovids. University Chicago Press, Chicago 367-381.
- ^ Estes 1991, p. 98–99.
- ISBN 9780801882210.
- ^ a b c Estes 1991, p. 99.
- ^ Bindernagel, J. A. (1968) Game cropping in Uganda. Canadian International Development Agency, Ottawa.
- ^ Estes 1991, p. 100.
- ^ "Wild Fact #292 – Better Than Corn On The Cob – Kob". 2012-05-24.
- ^ a b c d Buechner, H. K., Schleoth, R. K., (1965) Ceremonial mating behavior in Uganda kob (Adenota kob thomsi Neuman). Z. Tierpsychol, 22:209-25.
- ^ a b Fryxell, J. (1985) Resource limitation and population ecology of white-eared kob. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of British Columbia.
- ^ Floody, O. R., Arnold , A. P., (1975) Uganda kob (Adenota kob thomasi). Territoriality and the spatial distribution of sexual and agonistic behavior at a territorial ground. Z. Tierpsychol, 37:192-212.
- ^ Estes 1991, p. 101.
- ^ Estes 1991, p. 102.
- ^ Fischer, Frauke; Linsenmair, K. Eduard (6 December 2006). Changing social organization in an ungulate population subject to poaching and predation – the kob antelope (Kobus kob kob) in the Comoé National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. African Journal of Ecology. pp. 285–292.
- ^ "White-Eared Kob". National Geographic. 2010-11-09. Archived from the original on March 11, 2017. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
- ^ Briggs, Philip; Blatt, Brian (2009). Ethiopia. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 581.
Bibliography
- Estes, Richard (1991). The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520080850.
External links
- Media related to Kobus kob at Wikimedia Commons
- Data related to Kobus kob at Wikispecies
- Kob: Wildlife summary from the African Wildlife Foundation