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 
