India's blackbuck survives on Texas ranches and Argentine plains too
The blackbuck, a striking Indian antelope with spiralling horns and a two-tone coat, crashed in numbers during the 20th century and vanished from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Yet ranchers carried it to Argentina, Australia and the United States, and in Argentina it now thrives, while Indian villagers revere it.
Standing 74 to 84 centimetres at the shoulder, the blackbuck is a medium-sized antelope of grassy plains and light woodland with year-round water in India and Nepal. Males average about 38 kilograms and carry corkscrew horns 35 to 75 centimetres long; the lighter females occasionally grow horns as well. Mature males are dark brown to black above with white bellies, ears, tails and eye rings, while females and young are yellowish fawn with a clearer white stripe along each flank. The name blackbuck, recorded from 1850, refers to the dark back of the males.
Carl Linnaeus described it in 1758 in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae. It is the only living member of the genus Antilope, from a Latin word for a horned animal; its species name blends the Latin for deer and she-goat. Genetic work, including a 2013 study led by Eva Verena Bärmann at Cambridge, places it closest to the gazelles. Two subspecies are recognised, though they may prove to be separate species.
Blackbucks are active by day and live in small herds of females, males or young bachelors. Many males use lekking, defending patches that females visit to feed, which gives the male his chance to mate. They mostly graze low grasses. Females mature at eight months but typically mate only from two years, males at about a year and a half, and mating happens all year. After roughly six months of gestation a single calf is born, and the animals live about 10 to 15 years.
Once widespread, the species now survives mainly in scattered herds within protected areas, after heavy hunting, deforestation and habitat loss took their toll. Since 1972 India has banned hunting it under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act. The antelope holds religious significance in Hinduism, and villagers in India and Nepal leave it unharmed.
Source: Blackbuck
