THE GAZELLES AND THEIR ALLIES 609 



The Gerenuk 



Lithocranius 



Lithocranius Kohl, 1886, Ann. Mus. Wien, I, p. 79; type L. walleri. 



The gerenuk is a striking peculiarity among East African 

 antelopes in almost all its characteristics whether of body- 

 form or of habit. In Somaliland it is associated with an 

 understudy, the dibatag, but in British East Africa, into 

 which country it has but recently wandered, it stands 

 alone. The grotesque figure of the gerenuk needs no de- 

 scription. It can be recognized as far as it is visible by its 

 extreme slenderness, gauntness, and spidery aspect. The 

 body is very narrow and mounted on extremely long, slen- 

 der legs. The great length and slenderness of the neck, 

 however, is one of its chief peculiarities. This structure 

 is almost equal to the body in length and merges quite 

 imperceptibly into the narrow head. The snout is long 

 and produced at the tip into a short, prehensile lip or pro- 

 boscis. The ears are large and somewhat more expanded 

 than in the typical gazelles. The tail is thin-haired and of 

 medium length. The knees are furnished with well-marked 

 brushes. The male is armed with horns of a peculiar ly- 

 rate shape which are hooked forward sharply at the tips 

 and ringed throughout most of their length, but the female 

 is hornless. Four mammae are present in the female. The 

 dorsal color is a uniform cinnamon-red without the dark 

 side stripe or head stripes of gazelles. The skull is peculiar 

 among gazelles in its great flatness and length, the posterior 

 part being produced backward into a knobbed crest on the 

 occiput. The bones of the snout or premaxillaries are very 

 slender and bent downward at their tips, as in the dikdik, 

 and are of the characteristic shape found among species 

 possessing a proboscis. The males are distinctly larger than 

 the females, but are not distinguishable in coloration except 

 by the absence of a dark crown patch. The young resemble 

 the adult female in coloration. A single species is known 

 which ranges from Somaliland and southern Abyssinia south 

 to Kilimanjaro and German East Africa. The peculiar 

 structure of the animal and its adaptability to a desert 



