Grey rhebok

Rehantilope

The Rehantilope ( Pelea capreolus) is a common only in South Africa and Lesotho Bovidae. This small antelope is called in the English-speaking world with its Afrikaans name Rhebok, as she remembered the first immigrants to the familiar deer. In German, the name spread " Roebuck ".

Features

With a weight of 20 kg and a shoulder height of 75 cm, the Roebuck is a small and graceful antelope. The coat is oberseits gray, thick and woolly, white on the bottom. The running style is " rocking horse -like". The Rehantilope has long, narrow ears and a big black nose that looks swollen. Only males have slender, straight horns.

Dissemination

The original distribution area included not only the Republic of South Africa and Lesotho and Swaziland and southern Botswana. Today, the animals keep in mountainous or hilly areas in general. So they are to be found in the nature reserves of Bontebok and Giant's Castle. But the natural habitat also includes savannas, from which they had disappeared in the meantime only by hunting pressure.

Way of life

Rehantilopen eat leaves and grass and also do at cornfields amicably. They are diurnal and move as good jumpers over the rocks. In the fast run, they hold up the tail so that its bright white underside is disclosed a persecutor.

The Rehantilope lives in packs, with one male and several females and their offspring. The male defends the ten-member group on average against intruders. They are often very aggressive and can with their sharp horns violate their own gender dangerous or even kill. Also, attacks on sheep and goats are attested. A group member always stands guard while the others eat.

Taxonomy

The systematic position of any other horn carrier is highly controversial. Grzimek's Animal Life sees the Rehantilope a small relative of the water and reedbuck, CD Simpson in Orders and families of recent mammals of the world an extra-large members of the lugs. Gentry (The subfamilies and tribes of the family Bovidae ), it placed the gazelle -like, and even in the vicinity of the goats they should already have been made ​​. She also was performed in a separate subfamily, Peleinae that should be at the base of the Bovidae. Reeders Mammal Species of Wilson & the World ( 2005), finally assigns them into the Reduncinae, it looks so again as relatives of the reed and waterbuck.