Harnessed Bushbuck

The Northern bushbuck (''Tragelaphus scriptus'') is the nominate taxon of the bushbuck. It is a small to medium-sized antelope widespread in Africa. The northern (or harnessed) bushbuck has been separated from the Cape bushbuck, a southern and eastern species.Wronski T, Moodley Y. (2009) Bushbuck, harnessed antelope or both? ''Gnusletter'', 28(1):18-19.

Taxonomy

In a 2007 study, 19 genetically-based groupings were found, some of which do not correspond to previously described subspecies; eight of these were grouped under the nominate taxon. Former subspecies included as synonyms to the nominate taxon are ''phaleratus'', ''bor'' and ''dodingae''.Moodley Y, Bruford MW. (2007
Molecular biogeography: Towards an integrated framework for conserving pan-African biodiversity
''PLoS ONE''. 2:e454.

Hassanin et al. (2018)Hassanin A, Houck ML, Tshikung D, Kadjo B, Davis H, Ropiquet A (2018) Multi-locus phylogeny of the tribe Tragelaphini (Mammalia, Bovidae) and species delimitation in bushbuck: Evidence for chromosomal speciation mediated by interspecific hybridization. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 129: 96-105. found an mtDNA/nuclear DNA discordance between ''scriptus'' and ''sylvaticus clades''. Their phylogenetic analyses showed that the ''scriptus'' (northern) lineage is a sister-group of ''sylvaticus'' (southern) lineage in the nuclear tree, whereas it has nyala (''Tragelaphus angasii)'' haplotypes in the mitochondrial tree. They also found different karyotypes (chromosome numbers and arrangements), with those of ''scriptu''s deriving from the nyala. They concluded that ''scriptus'' (but not ''sylvaticus'') had hybridized with an "extinct species closely related to ''T. angasii''" in ancient times; and that "the division into two bushbuck species is supported by the analyses of nuclear markers and by the karyotype...".

As the first of the bushbucks to be described by Pallas in 1766 as ''Antilope scripta'' from Senegal, it retains the original species name for the bushbuck, corrected for gender.

Description

Bushbucks in general are smaller are than other tragelaphines, with a mainly red or yellow-brown ground color. According to Moodley ''et al''., the males of the West African population are more often striped than those in East or Southern Africa, although bushbucks with striping occur throughout the range.

Distribution

The nominate taxon occurs in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana and in the Niger Basin in Nigeria as far east as the Cross River, south of the Bamenda Highlands through Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic to the Nile in South Sudan (?) and northern Uganda, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo to northern Angola.

Ecology

It is common across its broad geographic distribution and is found in wooded savannas, forest-savanna mosaics, rainforests, in montane forests and semi-arid zones. It does not occur in the deep rainforests of the central Congo Basin.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q328803

Tragelaphus
Mammals of Sub-Saharan Africa
Mammals of West Africa
Mammals of Ethiopia
Mammals of Eritrea
Mammals of Angola
Mammals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mammals described in 1766
Bovids of Africa
Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas