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You are here: Home > Wildlife > Mammals > Coke's hartebeest or Kongoni
WILDLIFE: MAMMALS: COKE'S HARTEBEEST OR KONGONI
Class: Mammals
Order: Artiodactyls
Family: Bovids
Subfamily: Alcelaphines
Genus and species: Alcelaphus
buselaphus cokii
Common name:
English: Coke's hartebeest
Swahili: Kongoni
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Identification
Body: slender, shoulders higher than hindquarters. Body colour sandy fawn, rump pale or white. Tail with a blackish fringe in upper margin. Height to shoulder: 1.2 m. Length: 2.1 m. Weight: males 150 kg, females 120 kg.
Head: very elongated and narrow. Ringed horns, relatively short and shaped as a tumbled parenthesis or bracket, present in both sexes and thicker in males. Horns are rooted in a frontal bony skin-coated appendix. Ears long, narrow and pointed.
Distribution and ecology
Inhabits grassy plains, open grassy scrublands and lightly wooded areas, frequently in undulated country. Common in Southern Kenya, from the sea level up to 2000 m. Until one hundred years ago it was the most abundant plains antelope, but poaching and habitat encroachment have greatly reduced its numbers.
Food
Strict grazer. Prefers medium-height pasture and selects the leafy parts of grass. Drinks daily, though under drought conditions it can withstand long periods without water.
Behaviour
Gregarious and territorial, and equally diurnal or nocturnal. Territorial bulls mark out their area with urine and dung in regular places, as well as grunting and rubbing the soil with horns and preorbital glands. They defend their territory from elevated positions such as termite mounds. Old bulls are solitary, whereas young males usually rule a group of females with their progeny. The groups are composed of up to 10 cows with their calves, though in the dry season several groups may aggregate in tall grass areas to form herds of hundreds, sometimes associated with wildebeest and zebra, to disperse again with the onset of rains. They show a trend towards sedentariness, permanently dwelling in a male's territory, who will rule the group, or either roaming through several males' territories. When males are two years old, they leave the maternal group and gather in herds of up to 30 bachelors, occasionally including old bulls dispossessed of their territory. At the age of 3 they start competing for their own territory. Their longevity is 10-12 years. They are peaceful as a rule, but males may sporadically fight fiercely. Their gallop is fast and their smell is better than their sight. Their main predator is the lion, but they can also be chased by hyenas and hunting dogs, whilst leopards and cheetah prey on calves. At the sight of an enemy, both males and females raise the alert using a loud snort.
Reproduction
Females start calving when they are 3 years old. Heat is all year round, though there are more births during both dry seasons. After an 8-month gestation, the female gives birth to a single young, whom she will nurse for over four months.
Related species
Jackson's hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus jacksoni): higher, rufous in colour and straighter V-shaped horns, with longer frontal pedicles. Inhabits Western Kenya, near Lake Victoria. In this region there are hybrids between Coke's and Jackson's hartebeest, reason why they are considered races of a sole species.
Lelwel's hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus lelwel): very similar to the former. It can be distinguished by the horn tips, which are turned outward, and the dark markings on the lower part of the limbs. Found only in an arid corner of Northwest Kenya.
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Wildlife