Impala

Aepyceros melampus

Common name

Impala

Habitat

In savanna areas, where it prefers the margins between grasslands and dense wooded lands, since it needs high quality forage, humidity, shade and cover. It occupies grasslands during the rains and wooded lands in the dry season.
Details of the product

Family

bovidae
Subfamily: Antilopinae

Order

Artiodactyla

Class

Mammalia

Gestation

About 195-200 days.

Number of offspring

1

Breeding programs

Diet

It grazes almost exclusively during the rainy season, when the dry season arrives the percentage of grasses decreases to 30% of its diet and it browses shrubs, herbaceous plants, pods and seeds.

Lifespan

13 years in the wild and up to 17 in captivity.

Biology and Behavior

They look like a gazelle, with a brown or yellowish-brown back, lighter on the haunches, shoulders, neck and head, and much lighter on the sides. They have black tipped ears, as well as characteristic stripes on the back and a median line on the tail.

Only males have horns that become long, narrow, with slightly marked and separated knots at the tips. These arch first up and out, and then back and up.

Females form clans of 30-120 individuals, with roaming areas that largely overlap with the areas of neighboring female clans. Males maintain harems of between 15 and 20 females for mating and their offspring, which breaks the composition of the herds, which are restructured once the mating season is over. Single herds tend to occupy areas far from mating territories.

Although they are more active during the day, they have some nocturnal activity. Despite being gregarious, neither females nor males form lasting associations. Healthier adult males do not tolerate the presence of other males in the presence of females in heat, which causes fighting.

Female impala are separated from the group before giving birth, birth usually occurring at midday. After 1 or 2 days, the mother and newborn rejoin the herd where the young are grouped in “nurseries” where they play, groom and move together.

Some
Interesting Facts

Impalas use several anti-predation techniques, the most common is to flee in disarray to leave the predator behind or to confuse it, for this they make enormous jumps of up to 3 meters in any direction.