The name Adenota has sometimes been used to denote a genus or subgenus comprising K. kob and K. vardoni (Nowak 1991). Kobus kob includes at least ten described subspecies (Meester and Setzer 1971). The most widely recognized of these are the Uganda kob (/K. kob thomasi/), the white-eared kob (/K. kob leucotis/), and the Buffon's or Western kob (/K. kob kob/).
Perception Channels: tactile ; chemical
Meester and Setzer (1971) report the range of the species as greatly diminished, but kob are still common in national parks (Njiforti 1996). Kob in the Boma grassland ecosystem form the second largest population of antelope in Africa (East 1988).
Kob are hunted by lions (/Panthera leo/), spotted hyenas (/Crocuta crocuta/), human poachers, and wild dogs (/Lycaon pictus/) (Deutsch and Weeks 1992).
Muhlenberg and Roth (1985) list a series of management recommendations to maintain kob at their present population levels: (1) grassland habitat near rivers should be left undeveloped for grazing and access to water, (2) hunting should focus on bachelor males rather than the easily-obtained territorial males, and (3) simgle females should not be harvested, as they are likely to be in estrous or caring for young.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
No negative effects are described in the literature
Kob are commonly hunted for sport and food. A survey of bushmeat preferences in Cameroon ranked kob as the third most favored species, second only to North African porcupine and guinea fowl (Njiforti 1996).
Positive Impacts: food
Kob are herbivorous. They eat grasses and reeds, and may migrate great distances to graze along watercourses (Fryxell and Sinclair 1988).
Kobus kob occurs in the moist savannah zones of Africa, from Senegal to western Kenya (Nowak 1991).
Biogeographic Regions: ethiopian (Native )
Kob are usually found near permanent water sources (Deutsch 1994a). They frequent moist savannah, floodplains, and the margins of adjacent woodlands. Elevated areas with short grass are the preferred habitat for lek sites (Deutsch and Weeks 1992).
Females prefer high-visibility mating sites with short grasses and few thickets. This preference may serve to avoid lion predation (Deutsch and Weeks 1992), though Balmford and Turyaho (1992) disagree.
Terrestrial Biomes: savanna or grassland
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 17.0 years.
Standing aproximately 92 cm high at the shoulder, Kobus kob has a short, reddish-brown coat, with a white throat-patch and white underparts. A distinctive black stripe marks the front of the forelegs (Stuart and Stuart 1992). Horns average 44 cm in length and are ridged with transverse corrugations. They are curved, turning up at the tips. Only males carry horns (Smith 1985). The multiple subspecies that comprise Kobus kob are distinguished primarily by variation in pelage darkness (Meester and Setzer 1971).
Range mass: 90 to 120 kg.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; homoiothermic; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: ornamentation
Kob usually have a lek mating system, in which males defend small territories clustered on traditional mating grounds. Females visit these leks only to breed, and males provide no parental care. This mating system may have evolved because males cannot defend the widely-dispersed food resources or the dynamic and temporary female herds (Deutsch 1994a).
Within a lek, 20 to 200 males defend territories 15 to 200 meters in diameter (Nowak 1991). Male territories are smallest and most highly-contested in the center of the lek, where most matings occur. These territories maintain their popularity among females despite rapid male turnover (Deutsch 1994a). In areas of lower population density, males are spaced farther apart and hold their territories for longer periods of time (Nowak 1991; see below for further discussion of the effects of population density on mating system).
Each lek is associated with a female herd of about 100 individuals. Females begin to mate at the age of one, but males must normally wait for several more years (Nowak 1991). Larger numbers of females associate with larger leks, possibly because females stay on the lek longer when more males and other females are present (Deutsch 1994b).
Females give birth to a single offspring after a gestation period of around 9 months. Calving season may vary with location, but the Boma population of Uganda kob gives birth at the end of the rains, in November-December (Nowak 1991).
Range number of offspring: 1 (low) .
Average number of offspring: 1.
Range gestation period: 7.87 to 8.9 months.
Range weaning age: 6 to 7 months.
Key Reproductive Features: gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual
Average birth mass: 5405 g.
Average number of offspring: 1.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
Sex: male: 365 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
Sex: female: 403 days.
Parental Investment: altricial
The kob (Kobus kob) is an antelope found across Central Africa and parts of West Africa and East Africa. Together with the closely related reedbucks, waterbucks, lechwe, Nile lechwe, and puku, it forms the Reduncinae tribe.[2] Found along the northern savanna, it is often seen in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda; Garamba and Virunga National Park, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as grassy floodplains of South Sudan.[3] Kob are found in wet areas (such as floodplains), where they eat grasses. Kob are diurnal, but inactive during the heat of the day. They live in groups of either females and calves or just males. These groups generally range from five to 40 animals.
Among the kobs of eastern Africa, the Ugandan kob (Kobus kob thomasi) appears on the coat of arms of Uganda,[4] and white-eared kobs (Kobus kob leucotis), found in South Sudan, southwest Ethiopia, and extreme northeast Uganda, participate in large-scale migrations.
The kob resembles the impala but is more heavily built.[5] However, males are more robust than females and have horns.[6] Males have shoulder heights of 90–100 cm (3.0–3.3 ft) and an average weight of 94 kg (207 lb). Females have shoulder heights of 82–92 cm (2.69–3.02 ft) and weigh on average 63 kg (139 lb).[5][6] The pelage of the kob is typically golden to reddish-brown overall, but with the throat patch, eye ring, and inner ear being white, and the forelegs being black at the front.[5] Males get darker as they get older. Those of the white-eared kob (K. k. leucotis), which is found in the Sudd region (the easternmost part of their range), are strikingly different and overall dark, rather similar to the male Nile lechwe, though with a white throat and no pale patch from the nape to the shoulder. Both sexes have well-developed inguinal glands that secrete a yellow, waxy substance, as well as preorbital glands.[7]
The kob is currently found in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. It was formerly also found in Gambia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Morocco and Tanzania, but is now extinct in those areas.[8]
The kob's distribution from western Africa to central East Africa is patchy.[1] It inhabits flat areas and open country close to permanent water, with consistent climate. It drinks daily and requires fresh grazing.[6] During the rains, kob frequent short grasses and keep them short.[9] Since it is dependent on water, the kob does not wander far into arid areas.[6] Kob gather on and move from one pasture to another, coinciding with seasonal changes.[6] In flooded areas, they may travel hundreds of kilometers, and dry-season walks to water may take 10 km or more.[6] Grasses preferred by kobs are Hyparrhenia species, Brachiaria brizantha, Setaria gayanus, Chloris gayana, and Echinochloa and Digitaria spp.[10]
Female Kob can live in herds numbering in the thousands. They move more and are more social than territorial males.[6] Females are at the front of the daily movements to water. Individuals learn where to go from their mothers. However, in larger herds, the females take their signals from other females.[6] Males are also present in the migratory herds and follow the females. All-male herds may number in the hundreds and accompany females as they travel during dry season.[6]
The social and reproductive organization of kob can vary. When in average or low population densities, males establish conventional territories and do not travel much. Adult males try to establish their territories in the best habitat available, which are inhabited by herds of females and their young. Herds are fluid and change in size and structure as individuals travel to find green vegetation. Other males, particularly young males, live in bachelor herds and are segregated from the females by the territorial males. On floodplains, where kob are densely populated, around two-thirds of the territorial males establish traditional territories, while the rest live in clustered territories known as leks.[9] These clusters are sometimes smaller than a single traditional territory. Lek clusters are located on patches of short grass or bare ground within comparably tall grassland. As such, these territories have little to no value other than to the males that reside in them. About eight or 9 of every 10 females visit leks to mate, trading spacing and food for mating success.[11] The kob tends to live in smaller herds consisting of 5 to 15 individual kob, but herds as many as 40+ have been observed.[12] Females and bachelor males live in large herds of up to 2000 and move through the leks, which are surrounded by high-quality grass and are near waterholes and commonly travelled routes.
Conflicts between territorial Ugandan kob (K. k. thomasi) are usually settled with ritual and rarely actual fighting, whether in conventional territories or leks. A male usually needs only to walk in an erect posture towards the intruder to displace him.[13] Neighboring males in leks do the same thing when they encounter their borders. Lek-holding white-eared kobs fight more often.[14] Ugandan kob do sometimes sustain serious or fatal injuries, especially when control of a territory is at stake. Fights usually involve the combatants clashing, pressing and twisting each other with their horns head-on. However, a neighbor may attack from the rear or side.[13][14] In lek clusters, the most dominant males occupy the center. The number of males in the center of a lek cluster ranges from three to seven, and their leks are the most clustered and they monopolize copulations with estrous females.[15] Replacement of males in leks are much more common than in traditional territories, and most males are able to stay in the centre positions for only a day or two and rarely up to a week. This is largely due to intense competition and because most males leave their territories to feed and drink. Centrally located males reduce their chances of being replaced by leaving to feed during periods of relative calmness, yet they are not able to get enough food and water and have to eventually leave their leks. However, a male can gain enough energy after a week or two, and try to take back his position. At every lek cluster, males are always waiting take or retake a central lek.[13] Males in traditional territories are able to stay for at least a year or two.[9]
Females have their first ovulation at 13–14 months of age and have 20- to 26-day intervals between estrous cycles until they are fertilized. Males from traditional territories and leks have different courtship strategies. Males of traditional territories will herd females and keep them in their territories.[16] Lek males try to do the same, but usually fail. They have to rely on advertising themselves. Kob courtship may last as short as two minutes, and copulation may only last a few seconds.[13] At leks, a female may mate up to 20 times with at least one of the central males in a day. After an eight-month gestation period and giving birth, estrus may commence 21–64 days later. For their first month, calves hide in dense vegetation. Mother and calf can identify each other by their noses. As they get older, calves gather into crèches. When they are three to four months old, the young enter the females' herds and stay with mothers until six to seven months, by which time they are weaned. When they mature, males join bachelors groups.[17]
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Kob populations have been reduced by hunting and human development.[18] The Uganda kob (Kobus kob thomasi) became extinct in southwestern Kenya and northwestern Tanzania due to the expansion of human settlements and agriculture. However, there are sizeable populations of this subspecies in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda and Garamba and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1]
Buffon's kob (Kobus kob kob) is protected in several parks, including Niokolo-Koba in Senegal, Comoé in Côte d'Ivoire, Arly-Singou in Burkina Faso, Mole and Bui in Ghana, Pendjari in Benin, Waza, Bénoué and Faro National Parks of the North Province of Cameroon, Zakouma in Chad, and Manovo-Gounda-St. Floris and Dzanga Sangha Forest Reserve in the Central African Republic.[1]
Once feared almost extinct because of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005), surveys in 2007 and later confirmed that several hundred thousand white-eared kobs (Kobus kob leucotis) survived. Together with tiang and Mongalla gazelles, they participate in one of the largest mammal migrations on Earth, numbering about 1.2 million individuals in total.[19] The white-eared kob is protected in Boma National Park and Bandingilo National Park in South Sudan,[1] and Gambella National Park in Ethiopia.[20]
The kob (Kobus kob) is an antelope found across Central Africa and parts of West Africa and East Africa. Together with the closely related reedbucks, waterbucks, lechwe, Nile lechwe, and puku, it forms the Reduncinae tribe. Found along the northern savanna, it is often seen in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda; Garamba and Virunga National Park, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as grassy floodplains of South Sudan. Kob are found in wet areas (such as floodplains), where they eat grasses. Kob are diurnal, but inactive during the heat of the day. They live in groups of either females and calves or just males. These groups generally range from five to 40 animals.
Among the kobs of eastern Africa, the Ugandan kob (Kobus kob thomasi) appears on the coat of arms of Uganda, and white-eared kobs (Kobus kob leucotis), found in South Sudan, southwest Ethiopia, and extreme northeast Uganda, participate in large-scale migrations.
