Harnessed bushbuck

Harnessed bushbuck
Male
Female
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Bovidae
Subfamily:	Bovinae
Genus:	Tragelaphus
Species:	T. scriptus
Binomial name
Tragelaphus scriptus (Pallas, 1766)
Combined range of harnessed and Cape bushbuck
Synonyms
Tragelaphus bor Tragelaphus decula Tragelaphus phaleratus

The harnessed bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus) or harnessed antelope, also called kewel, 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.

Widely found throughout the northern parts of Africa, this antelope species is also known as the Nile bushbuck, Abyssinian bushbuck, Senegal bushbuck, northern bushbuck, western bushbuck, and central bushbuck among many common names.

Taxonomy

Giant eland Common eland Greater kudu Mountain nyala Bongo Sitatunga Cape bushbuck Harnessed bushbuck Lowland nyala Lesser kudu

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.

Hassanin et al. (2018) 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.

Description

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. Harnessed bushbucks are slightly larger than cape bushbucks. They are typically between 100–170 cm (39–67 in) in head-and-body length. Males are up to 100 cm (39 in), and females up to 80 cm (2.6 ft) tall at the shoulder. Males weigh 40–115 kg (88–254 lb), while females weigh 24–60 kg (53–132 lb). Their size may vary a lot depending on the region. Average life expectancy of this antelope in the wild is around 12 to 15 years.

Distribution

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.

Ecology

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.