Jentink's duiker (''Cephalophus jentinki''), also known as ''gidi-gidi'' in
Krio and ''kaikulowulei'' in
Mende, is a forest-dwelling
duiker
A duiker is a small to medium-sized brown antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa, found in heavily wooded areas. The 22 extant species, including three sometimes considered to be subspecies of the other species, form the subfamily Cephalophinae ...
found in the southern parts of
Liberia
Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...
, southwestern
Côte d'Ivoire
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and ...
, and scattered enclaves in
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
. It is named in honor of
Fredericus Anna Jentink
Fredericus Anna Jentink (20 August 1844, Wymbritseradeel – 4 November 1913, Leiden)Fredericus Anna Jentink (1844 - 1913). In: Notes from the Leyden Museum Vol. 36, 1913. p 254 was a Dutch zoologist.
Biography
In 1875, he became curator at the ...
.
Jentink's duikers stand around tall at the shoulder and weigh about , making them the largest species of the duikers. They are gray from the shoulders back and dark black from the shoulders forward.
A white band goes over the shoulders, between the two colours and joining the white undersides. Jentink's duikers have long, thin horns, which curl back a little at the ends, and reach between .
Jentink's duikers live mainly in very thick
rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...
, where they eat
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...
,
flower
Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...
s, and
leaves
A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...
which have fallen from the
canopy, as well as
stems of seedlings,
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...
s, and, to the annoyance of local farmers, palm nuts, mangos, and cocoa pods. They are
nocturnal
Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite.
Nocturnal creatur ...
and shelter during the day in dense thickets, or buttress roots, apparently in pairs. Jentink's duikers are reported to be territorial animals, and when frightened, will run very quickly, but wear themselves out easily.
The species was first recognized as a new species in 1884, though it was not described until 1892.
The species then vanished until a skull was found in Liberia in 1948. Sightings have occurred in its habitat since the 1960s. In 1971, the species was successfully bred in the
Gladys Porter Zoo.
Recent population numbers are not available. In 1999 it was estimated that around 3,500 Jentink's duikers remained in the wild, but the following year others suggested less than 2,000 were likely to remain.
They are threatened primarily by
habitat destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...
and commercial
bushmeat
Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are Hunting, hunted for human consumption. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity in poor and rural communities of humid tropical forest regions of the worl ...
hunters.
Taxonomy
It is classified under the genus ''
Cephalophus'' and the family
Bovidae
The Bovidae comprise the family (biology), biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes Bos, cattle, bison, Bubalina, buffalo, antelopes (including Caprinae, goat-antelopes), Ovis, sheep and Capra (genus), goats. A member o ...
. It was first
described by British zoologist
Oldfield Thomas
Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist.
Career
Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...
in 1892 in the ''
Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London''.
The
generic name probably comes from the combination of the
New Latin
Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...
word ''cephal'', meaning head, and the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
word ''lophos'', meaning crest. The word "duiker" comes from the Afrikaans word ''duik'', or Dutch ''dūken'' - both mean "diver".
A 2001
phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...
study divided ''Cephalophus'' into three distinct lineages: the giant duikers, east African red duikers and west African red duikers. Jentink's duiker was classified as a giant duiker along with the
yellow-backed duiker (''C. silvicultor''),
Abbott's duiker (''C. spadix''), and the
bay duiker (''C. dorsalis'').
In 2012, Anne R. Johnston (of the
University of Orleans) and colleagues constructed a cladogram of the
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...
Cephalophinae (duiker) based on
mitochondria
A mitochondrion () is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is us ...
l analysis. They showed that within the "giant duiker" group, Jentink's duiker formed a clade with the bay duiker, and the
zebra duiker is sister to this clade. Similarly, Abbott's duiker and yellow-backed duiker form a clade sister to ''
Sylvicapra''. Jentink's duiker and the bay duiker probably evolved during the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
, less than 2.5 million years ago.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q909034
Jentink's duiker
Mammals of West Africa
Jentink's duiker
Jentink's duiker