Perception Channels: tactile ; chemical
There are no special conservation efforts for this species. They are able to coexist with human habitation to a greater extent than many other species, and in some areas they are considered a pest and their population is controlled.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Bushbucks cause or are involved in a number of problems. Perhaps most seriously, their populations are controlled in areas near domestic cattle. Since bushbuck live among the trees and shrubs associated with rivers, they are frequently bitten by tsetse flies, which could then infect the cattle with nagana (sleeping sickness). Bushbuck cause damage in pine forestry areas by nibbling the tops of the young trees, resulting in excessive branching. Also, they frequently live on the outskirts of towns and cities, and in these areas they damage peoples' gardens.
These antelopes have been hunted as a food source.
Positive Impacts: food
Bushbucks are browsers. They eat herbs and the leaves, twigs, and flowers of a large number of plant species. Although they will eat a wide variety of plant species when hungry, they are somewhat selective when possible, prefering knobbly creeper and sausage tree. They will also occasionally eat fresh grass.
Throughout central Africa, from south of the Sahara to north of the Kalahari deserts.
Biogeographic Regions: ethiopian (Native )
Bushbucks can be found throughout their broad distribution wherever there is adequate cover for concealment, nearly irrespective of altitude or aridity. They live in forest edges or brushy cover associated with rivers and streams. During the night they move out of their home thicket to somewhat more open areas to feed.
Terrestrial Biomes: savanna or grassland ; forest ; rainforest ; scrub forest
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 15.3 years.
Male bushbucks are bigger than females, with weights ranging from 40 to 80 kg and shoulder heights from 70 to 100 cm. Females weigh about 25 to 60 kg and are 65 to 85 cm tall. Only males have horns, which usually spiral once and are fairly straight, parallel to one another, and up to a half meter long. Females are usually a lighter brown than males. Both sexes have white spots and stripes, the patterns of which vary geographically.
Range mass: 25 to 80 kg.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Young can be born at any time of year, but in arid regions there is a peak in birth rates during the rainy season. Gestation requires only 180 days, allowing a female to produce more than one calf per year. A single calf weighing about 4 kg is born. The calf does not follow its mother out into the open to forage until it is four months old. It remains hidden in the dense underbrush in the mean time, and its mother returns periodically to let it nurse. Sexual maturity is reached at one year, but males' horns do not reach full size until three years of age.
Range number of offspring: 1 (low) .
Average number of offspring: 1.
Range gestation period: 5.93 to 6.23 months.
Average gestation period: 5.99 months.
Key Reproductive Features: gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual
Average birth mass: 3800 g.
Average number of offspring: 1.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
Sex: female: 496 days.
Parental Investment: altricial ; post-independence association with parents
The Northern bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) or harnessed bushbuck, is a medium-sized antelope, widespread in sub-Saharan-Africa. The northern bushbuck species has been separated from the Cape bushbuck, a southern and eastern species.[1][2][3]
Northern bushbuck
Phylogenetic relationships of the mountain nyala from combined analysis of all molecular data (Willows-Munro et.al. 2005)In a 2007 study, 19 genetically-based groupings were found, some of which do not correspond to previously described subspecies; eight of these were grouped under the nominate taxon. Former subspecies included as synonyms to the nominate taxon are phaleratus, bor and dodingae.[4]
Hassanin et al. (2018)[3] found an mtDNA/nuclear DNA discordance between scriptus and sylvaticus clades. Their phylogenetic analyses showed that the scriptus (northern) lineage is a sister-group of sylvaticus (southern) lineage in the nuclear tree, whereas it has nyala (Tragelaphus angasii) haplotypes in the mitochondrial tree. They also found different karyotypes (chromosome numbers and arrangements), with those of scriptus deriving from the nyala. They concluded that scriptus (but not sylvaticus) had hybridized with an "extinct species closely related to T. angasii" in ancient times; and that "the division into two bushbuck species is supported by the analyses of nuclear markers and by the karyotype...".
As the first of the bushbucks to be described by Pallas in 1766 as Antilope scripta from Senegal, it retains the original species name for the bushbuck, corrected for gender.
Bushbucks in general are smaller are than other tragelaphines, with a mainly red or yellow-brown ground color. According to Moodley et al., the males of the West African population are more often striped than those in East or Southern Africa, although bushbucks with striping occur throughout the range.
The nominate taxon occurs in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana and in the Niger Basin in Nigeria as far east as the Cross River, south of the Bamenda Highlands through Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic to the Nile in South Sudan and northern Uganda, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo to northern Angola.[4]
It is common across its broad geographic distribution and is found in wooded savannas, forest-savanna mosaics, rainforests, in montane forests and semi-arid zones. It does not occur in the deep rainforests of the central Congo Basin.
The Northern bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) or harnessed bushbuck, is a medium-sized antelope, widespread in sub-Saharan-Africa. The northern bushbuck species has been separated from the Cape bushbuck, a southern and eastern species.
