614 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



The Impalla 



jEpyceros 



JEpyceros Sundevall, 1847, K. Vet. Akad. Handl., 1845, p. 271; type 

 A. melampus. 



The impalla is one of the aberrant members of the sub- 

 family Antilopince, of which the gazelles are typical. It 

 resembles the gazelles more closely in skull structure than 

 any other group, and in conformity with them the snout 

 shows a large narial chamber and broad, short nasal bones, 

 but differs by having a large oval sinus on the sides of the 

 snout between the premaxillary and maxillary bones. In 

 the absence of anteorbital fossae it differs decidedly from 

 African gazelles, but in this respect resembles such Asiatic 

 members as the chiru, Pantholops, of Tibet and the Mon- 

 golian gazelles of the genus Procapra. The absence of 

 false hoofs distinguishes the impalla from all other large 

 antelopes. Other characters which serve to separate it 

 from the African gazelles are the absence of the anteorbital 

 gland and pore on the face, the absence of horns in the 

 female, the lack of stripes on the face or body, the bushy 

 tail and the presence of four mammae in the female. The 

 only gazelle marking in the coat is the black pygal stripe 

 on the hind quarters. A color character, confined to this 

 antelope alone, concerns the feet. The hind legs are marked 

 on the cannon-bones by two oval black patches in which the 

 hair is much longer and coarser and overlies a glandular 

 area of the skin similar to the metatarsal glands of the 

 white tail deer. The position of the fetlocks is marked by 

 two smaller black patches. The sexes are alike in color, 

 but the female is somewhat smaller than the buck in size. 

 The newly born young differ in no way conspicuously from 

 the coloration of their parents. 



The genus contains a single species which is confined to 

 the Ethiopian region, where it ranges from the Orange 

 River, in South Africa, northward on the East Coast as far 

 as British East Africa and southern Uganda. In the south- 

 ern part of its range it spreads westward to Angola, but is 

 not found north of that district in the Congo forest area or 

 the Nigerian region. 



