Klipspringer

klipspringer, (Oreotragus oreotragus), rock-climbing antelope, resident in mountains of eastern and southern Africa. Its Kiswahili name “goat of the rocks” is apt, although it more closely resembles Eurasian goat antelopes such as the chamois and is radically different from other dwarf antelopes of its tribe, Neotragini, of the family Bovidae.

Adaptations for its specialized niche include a stocky build with massive hindquarters, a short neck, a vestigial tail, a dense undercoat with brittle, air-filled guard hairs, and the ability to stand on tiptoes of its truncated hoofs. Its colouring—shades of grizzled tan, gray, and brown, which vary with location—conceals the klipspringer from predators; it has no contrasting markings except its large, rounded ears, which are white inside and have black margins. Horns are straight spikes 10 cm (4 inches) long and are frequently present in both sexes in East African and Ethiopian populations. Its bounding gait and sure-footedness enable the klipspringer to outrun predators on precipitous slopes and rocky terrain—even on level, jagged lava fields—making such places sanctuaries. Insulation enables it to survive climatic extremes from sea level up to 4,500 metres (14,800 feet).

Klipspringers are equally adaptable in diet; they eat a wide variety of evergreen shrubs, succulents, vines, seeds, flowers, forbs, and herbs, including green grass. If necessary, they leave their rocky sanctuaries to feed, even at times of day when they are normally inactive. The plants they eat supply all the water they need.

Klipspringers inhabit mountain ranges of eastern Africa from the Red Sea Hills to the Cape and north to Angola along coastal ranges and river gorges. The Ethiopian highlands are the centre of their distribution. Isolated populations in Nigeria and the Central African Republic indicate a wider range in former epochs.

Like most dwarf antelopes (e.g., the dik-dik), klipspringers live in monogamous pairs and jointly defend their territories. These can be as small as 8 hectares (20 acres) in high-rainfall locations such as escarpments of the Ethiopian highlands, where up to 47 klipspringers per square kilometre will compete for resources, or as large as 50 hectares (124 acres) in desert areas. Pairs associate closely, and a young of the year often accompanies the female; offspring leave home as yearlings, by which time they are adult in size. Both sexes spend much time posting territorial boundaries with dung middens and tarlike globules of preorbital gland secretion daubed on twigs. The male is particularly vigilant and, in addition to marking, spends hours standing sentinel on promontories where he can see and be seen to advantage. He thus visually advertises territorial occupancy while guarding his property and family from intrusions by rivals and predators. The nursing female is thereby freed to spend extra time feeding. If her mate sounds the whistling alarm snort, she immediately bounds uphill to sanctuary. Disturbed pairs often call in duet, which can serve to discourage a predator, advertise the presence of a pair to homesteading individuals, and reinforce the pair bond.

After a gestation period of seven months, a single young is born. Births occur at any time of the year, with peaks during the rainy season. The hiding stage lasts 2–3 months, perhaps because of predation by eagles that regularly hunt hyraxes that share the klipspringer’s habitat.