The springbok is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in southern and southwestern Africa. It is the sole member of the genus Antidorcas and is placed in the family Bovidae. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources classifies the spring bovid as a least concern species.
About Springbok in brief
The springbok is a medium-sized antelope found mainly in southern and southwestern Africa. It is the sole member of the genus Antidorcas and is placed in the family Bovidae. A slender, long-legged antelope, it reaches 71 to 86 cm at the shoulder and weighs between 27 and 42 kg. Both sexes have a pair of black, 35-to-50 cm long horns that curve backwards. Springbok are popular game animals, and are valued for their meat and skin. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources classifies the spring bovid as a least concern species. A single calf is born after a five- to six-month-long pregnancy; weaning occurs at nearly six months of age, and the calf leaves its mother a few months later. No major threats to the long-term survival of the species are known. The common name \”springbok\” comes from the Afrikaans words spring and bok ; the first recorded use of the name dates to 1775. In 2013, Eva Verena Bärmann and colleagues undertook a revision of the phylogeny of the tribe Antilopini on the basis of nuclear and mitochondrial data. The study pointed out that the saiga and theSpringbok could be considerably different from the rest of the antilopines; a 2007 phylogenetic study even suggested that the two form a clade sister to the gerenuk. The third species, A.
Aii, became extinct around 7,000 years ago. The 2013 study is based on fossil species from below below the Pliocene the antelope appears to have evolved about three million years ago from a gazelle-like ancestor. A marsupialis probably gave rise to the extant form A. marsupium during the Pleistocene, about 100,000 years ago, and appear to have been widespread across Africa. A. Ai and Ai bond have been reported from the Holiocene, Pleistician and australis, between 100 and 100,00 years ago, reported from Pleiocene and Pleiilskii, between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. The springbOK is the national animal of South Africa and is known as the ‘South African Game Animal’. It has a white face, a dark stripe running from the eyes to the mouth, a light-brown coat marked by a reddish-brown stripe that runs from the upper fore leg to the buttocks across the flanks, and a white rump flap. It can live without drinking water for years, meeting its requirements through eating succulent vegetation. Breeding takes place year-round, and peaks in the rainy season, when forage is most abundant. It was first described by the German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in 1780. In 1845, Swedish zoologist Carl Jakob Sundevall placed the springboks in Antidorfas, a genus of its own.
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This page is based on the article Springbok published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
