Image taken by Mark Homann
The Greater Kudu, by Mark Homann Professional Guide
The Greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) is a most spectacular antelope found in woodland habitats of Southern and Eastern Africa. The larger males have two and a half impressive horns (twists) that, when fully formed, can be as long as three feet. The females lack the horns of males but are equally impressive in their beauty.
Image taken by Mark Homann
Mature males tend to be more solitary and will often fight one another by locking their horns together. I once witnessed two males that had locked their horns together and could not pull apart. Their struggle sadly led them to exhaustion and their untimely demise. Large males, such as the ones I witnessed, can weigh close to 600 pounds—which made it extremely difficult to separate the two greater kudu after they had died.
Males leave the females to join other young males and form bachelor groups of up to as many as eight individuals. The dominant bull in an area will join up with female herds when the cows start ovulating around May—depending on the area in which they live.
A cowherd can average anywhere from five to eight individuals, but can be substantially higher at times. When these females calve, they will hide their offspring for the first two weeks while they feed nearby, until the young animals are strong enough to move with the herd. Young animals have little to no scent and can lie motionless for hours, avoiding detection from Africa’s many predators.
Kudu have a number of larger predators to defend against, such as the lion, hyena, and wild dog.
I have seen leopards kill female kudus a number of times, which is a very impressive feat for a leopard, seeing as the female kudu weighs 400 pounds and a leopard weighs about 130 pounds.
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The kudu’s most effective lines of defense are their senses, stealth, and the soft white lines on their coats that help to break their silhouette. As browsers, kudus stick to the woodlands, coming out into the open to occasionally drink, and feed on herbs found in open grasslands. It is important to their survival that they stay together as a herd. To help them stay in packs when they’re running through dense foliage, they’ll lift up their tails to expose the white fur underneath. Because kudu can only see in shades of black and white, the white tail stands out and helps them to stick together.
Kudu have a habit of feeding into the wind. Not only does this allow them to smell any danger ahead of them, but it also enables them to stay ahead of the tannins produced by the trees that they are feeding on. Trees produce tannins in their leaves when disturbed, in order to stop animals from over feeding on them. And it is thought that the trees pass pheromones to other trees downwind of them as a warning of the browsing animals’ presence.
