Antidorcas marsupialisspringbok

Ge­o­graphic Range

Spring­bok range in­cludes south and south­west­ern Africa, mainly in the coun­tries of Namibia, Botswana, An­gola and the Re­pub­lic of South Africa.

Habi­tat

Spring­boks are mostly con­fined to game re­serves and farms in tree­less sa­vanna as­so­ci­ated with the edges of dry lake beds.

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The spring­bok is a strik­ingly marked, gazel­le­like an­te­lope. It has a white face with dark stripes from the mouth to the eyes, a red­dish-brown coat that turns to a darker shade and then to white on the lower third of its body, and a white back­side. It stands ap­prox­i­mately 80cm high at the shoul­ders and is char­ac­ter­ized by a fold of skin that runs from the mid­back to the rump. This fold can be opened in times of ex­cite­ment to dis­play a crest of white hair. Both sexes also have black, curved, lyre-shaped horns. Larger males can have horns 36-48cm in length.

  • Range mass
    33 to 46 kg
    72.69 to 101.32 lb

Re­pro­duc­tion

The spring­bok gen­er­ally mates dur­ing the dry sea­son and lac­tates dur­ing the hot, wet sea­son when re­sources are most abun­dant. Birth takes place in Oct-Nov, the start of the wet sea­son. Ges­ta­tion is ap­prox­i­mately 4-6 months and fe­males gen­er­ally re­pro­duce every 2 years, start­ing be­tween the ages of 1 and 2. Wean­ing usu­ally oc­curs from 6 months to 1 year. The parental con­tri­bu­tion is mainly by the mother, as spring­boks tend to live in herds of fe­males and their off­spring along with very few dom­i­nant males. Life ex­pectancy of an av­er­age spring­bok is 7-9 years.

  • Key Reproductive Features
  • gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
  • sexual
  • Range number of offspring
    1 to 2
  • Average number of offspring
    1.01
  • Average number of offspring
    1
    AnAge
  • Range gestation period
    5.57 to 5.7 months
  • Range weaning age
    4 to 4.07 months
  • Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
    Sex: female
    213 days
    AnAge
  • Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
    Sex: male
    400 days
    AnAge

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Be­hav­ior

Dur­ing mat­ing sea­son, most males wan­der to­gether in search of mates, while fe­males live in herds with their off­spring and very few dom­i­nant males. The wan­der­ing males are of lower sta­tus for a va­ri­ety of rea­sons. Some are lower rank­ing due to being young or very old. Oth­ers have lost out in com­pe­ti­tion with dom­i­nant males for es­trus fe­males. When fright­ened or ex­cited, a spring­bok makes a se­ries of stiff-legged ver­ti­cal leaps up to 3.5m high. This be­hav­ior is known as pronk­ing and is per­formed with the head down, the hooves bunched, and the back arched. The leaps are said to dis­tract preda­tors, such as lions and chee­tahs.

Spring­boks used to travel/live in mega-herds, known as "treks," but be­cause spring­boks are now mostly con­fined to pri­vate farms and game re­serves, treks are few and are lim­ited to re­mote areas of An­gola and Botswana.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Food Habits

The spring­bok is an in­ter­me­di­ate browser, using both grass and browse. The shift from one food source to the other takes place sea­son­ally. It is largely due to the need for water in the hot, dry sea­son when the nat­ural water sup­plies are not con­stant, dur­ing which time flow­ers are eaten. These flow­ers have dou­ble the mean water con­tent of the grass that is con­sumed in times of water avail­abil­ity (dur­ing the hot, wet sea­son). Uti­liz­ing food re­sources in this way al­lows spring­boks to re­main in­de­pen­dent of a con­stant water sup­ply, whether it be from man-made wa­ter­ing holes, nat­ural water holes, or other water sup­plies. This is a great ad­van­tage in a cli­mate where droughts are com­mon.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The spring­bok is the Re­pub­lic of South Africa's sport­ing em­blem. It is re­spected and hon­ored in that coun­try, which has lead to a mod­er­ate in­crease in pro­tec­tion. Only with spe­cial per­mis­sion or a spe­cial li­cense can hunters pur­sue the spring­bok. Spring­bok are pop­u­lar at­trac­tions for tourists at game re­serves and pri­vate farms. Pre­vi­ously, when hunt­ing with­out a li­cense for spring­bok was legal, the meat of spring­boks pro­vided an abun­dant sup­ply of pro­tein to a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion in south­ern Africa.

  • Positive Impacts
  • food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Pre­vi­ously, when the spring­bok trav­eled in large num­bers, they caused ex­ten­sive crop dam­age to the Dutch farms.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Spring­bok once trav­eled by the hun­dreds and even mil­lions. Spring­bok were hunted by the Dutch farm­ers whose crops were ru­ined by "treks" of spring­bok trav­el­ling in search of food and water. Spring­bok are now being in­tro­duced in game re­serves and pri­vate farms in an ef­fort to pre­serve the species.

Con­trib­u­tors

June Barnard (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Glossary

Ethiopian

living in sub-Saharan Africa (south of 30 degrees north) and Madagascar.

World Map

altricial

young are born in a relatively underdeveloped state; they are unable to feed or care for themselves or locomote independently for a period of time after birth/hatching. In birds, naked and helpless after hatching.

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

dominance hierarchies

ranking system or pecking order among members of a long-term social group, where dominance status affects access to resources or mates

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

food

A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.

migratory

makes seasonal movements between breeding and wintering grounds

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

social

associates with others of its species; forms social groups.

tactile

uses touch to communicate

tropical savanna and grassland

A terrestrial biome. Savannas are grasslands with scattered individual trees that do not form a closed canopy. Extensive savannas are found in parts of subtropical and tropical Africa and South America, and in Australia.

savanna

A grassland with scattered trees or scattered clumps of trees, a type of community intermediate between grassland and forest. See also Tropical savanna and grassland biome.

temperate grassland

A terrestrial biome found in temperate latitudes (>23.5° N or S latitude). Vegetation is made up mostly of grasses, the height and species diversity of which depend largely on the amount of moisture available. Fire and grazing are important in the long-term maintenance of grasslands.

Ref­er­ences

Nagy, Ken­neth and Knight, Michael. 1994. En­ergy, Water and Food Use by Spring­bok An­te­lope in the Kala­hari Desert. Jour­nal of Mam­mal­ogy. Vol. 75:860-72.

"Spring­bok." En­cy­clo­pe­dia Bri­tan­ica, Vol.11, p.180, 1994.

Plug, Ina. 1994. Spring­bok From the Past. Zeitschaft fuer Saegetierkunde. Vol. 59(4): 246-251.