BUSHBUCKS, KOODOOS, AND ELANDS 445 



the difference in the shape of the horns, and their absence in 

 the female, and the bushy tail. Besides the color differences 

 from the greater koodoo, there are some distinctions in the 

 skull. The snout is longer, the premaxillary bones being 

 much longer than in the greater koodoo. The genus con- 

 tains but one species, the lesser koodoo. 



East African Lesser Koodoo 



Ammelaphus imherbis australis 



Native Names: Swahili, kungu; Duruma, chakwa. 



Afnmelaphus imberbis australis Heller, 1913, Smith. Misc. Coll., vol. 61, No. 

 13, p. 2. 



Range. — From Ugogo, in central German East Africa, 

 northward through the Rift Valley to the British East 

 African border, where it spreads eastward to the coast and 

 northward to southern Abyssinia and Somaliland; not oc- 

 curring above an altitude of three thousand feet. 



The typical lesser koodoo was first described by Edward 

 Blyth in 1869, but it was not for several years afterward that 

 the difference with the greater koodoo was clearly defined, 

 owing to the absence of specimens in Europe. Sir John 

 Kirk obtained the first specimens in East Africa, in 1873, 

 at Brava near the mouth of the Juba River. Later Wil- 

 loughby and Jackson obtained specimens in the Taita coun- 

 try, east of Kilimanjaro. The present race was recently 

 described from specimens secured by the Rainey expedition, 

 south of Mount Marsabit. 



The lesser koodoo inhabits the level, bush-covered desert 

 at low altitudes, usually occurring in rather dense thickets 

 and seldom in scattered or open bush. The males are usually 

 solitary, but the females are found in smaller groups of two to 

 four, with their young. Usually such groups are made up 

 of an old female with a yearling offspring and a nursing kid. 

 When startled they sometimes utter a sharp, barking call, 

 similar to that made by the bushbuck, and bound away in 

 great leaps, at times clearing bushes six feet high. Their 

 feeding time is at dusk and again at dawn. The hot hours 

 of midday are spent in the security of some impenetrable 

 thicket. Their food consists chiefly of the twigs of acacias 



