World Species : Tragelaphus spekii (sitatunga)

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Tragelaphus spekii (sitatunga)

Contents

Wikipedia Abstract

The sitatunga or marshbuck (Tragelaphus spekii) is a swamp-dwelling antelope found throughout central Africa, centering on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, parts of Southern Sudan, Ghana, Botswana, Zambia, Gabon, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The species was first described by the English explorer John Hanning Speke in 1863. The sitatunga is a medium-sized antelope. Males reach approximately 81–116 cm (32–46 in) at the shoulder, while females reach 72–90 cm (28–35 in). Males typically weigh 76–119 kg (168–262 lb), while females weigh 24–57 kg (53–126 lb). The sitatunga has a shaggy, water-resistant coat which varies in colour. The body and feet of this antelope are specially adapted to its swampy habitat. Only the males possess horns; these are spiral in shape, have one or two

View Wikipedia Record: Tragelaphus spekii

Infraspecies

Tragelaphus spekii gratus
Tragelaphus spekii larkenii
Tragelaphus spekii selousi
Tragelaphus spekii spekii
Tragelaphus spekii sylvestris

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0)

Unique (100)

Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0)

Unique & Vulnerable (100)

ED Score: 10.42

EDGE Score: 2.44

Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation ^[2]	8 months 2 days
Litter Size ^[2]	1
Litters / Year ^[2]	1
Maximum Longevity ^[2]	23 years
Snout to Vent Length ^[4]	5.281 feet (161 cm)
Water Biome ^[1]	Lakes and Ponds

Adult Weight ^[2]	192.905 lbs (87.50 kg)
Birth Weight ^[2]	8.819 lbs (4.00 kg)

Diet ^[3]	Herbivore
Diet - Plants ^[3]	100 %
Forages - Ground ^[3]	100 %

Female Maturity ^[2]	1 year 1 month

Ecoregions

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Name	Countries	Ecozone	Biome
Albertine Rift montane forests	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi,Tanzania	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Atlantic Equatorial coastal forests	Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Central African mangroves	Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial, Guinea, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo	Afrotropic	Mangroves
Central Congolian lowland forests	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests	Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Eastern Congolian swamp forests	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Guinean mangroves	Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire	Afrotropic	Mangroves
Lake Chad flooded savanna	Nigeria, Chad, Niger	Afrotropic	Flooded Grasslands and Savannas
Nigerian lowland forests	Nigeria, Benin	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Northeastern Congolian lowland forests	Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Republic of the Congo	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Northern Congolian forest-savanna mosaic	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Central African Republic, Cameroon	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Northwestern Congolian lowland forests	Cameroon, Central African Republic, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Saharan flooded grasslands	Sudan	Afrotropic	Flooded Grasslands and Savannas
Southern Congolian forest-savanna mosaic	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Victoria Basin forest-savanna mosaic	Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Western Congolian forest-savanna mosaic	Gabon, Congo, Democratic Rep of the Congo, Angola	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Western Congolian swamp forests	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Western Zambezian grasslands	Angola, Zambia	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands
Zambezian Cryptosepalum dry forests	Zambia	Afrotropic	Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests
Zambezian flooded grasslands	Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia	Afrotropic	Flooded Grasslands and Savannas

Protected Areas

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Biodiversity Hotspots

Name	Location	Endemic	Species	Website
Eastern Afromontane	Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe	No
Guinean Forests of West Africa	Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo	No

Prey / Diet

Cyperus papyrus (papyrus)	^[5]
Lipotriche scandens scandens	^[5]
Persicaria attenuata pulchra (pale smartweed)	^[5]
Persicaria senegalensis (coastal jointweed)	^[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing Species	Common Prey Count
Euplectes axillaris (Fan-tailed Widowbird)	1
Nesocharis ansorgei (White-collared Oliveback)	1

Consumers

Parasitized by
Linognathus limnotragi	^[6]
Rhipicephalus aquatilis	^[7]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ ¹Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ ²de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ ³Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ ⁴Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ ⁵Understanding sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekii) habitats through diet analysis in Rushebeya-Kanyabaha wetland, Uganda, Joseph Ndawula, Mnason Tweheyo, David M. Tumusiime and Gerald Eilu, Afr. J. Ecol., 49, 481–489
♦ ⁶Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ ⁷Nunn, C. L., and S. Altizer. 2005. The Global Mammal Parasite Database: An Online Resource for Infectious Disease Records in Wild Primates. Evolutionary Anthroplogy 14:1-2.

Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database

Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund

Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License

Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0