A greater kudu bull needs six years to finish twisting its horns
A greater kudu bull's horns start sprouting in his first year, complete one spiral by about age two, and reach their full two and a half turns only around six. Straightened out, they would average 120 cm, and the record pair stretched to nearly 188 cm.
This is one of Africa's largest antelopes, a little smaller than the bongo. Bulls weigh 190 to 270 kg and stand up to 1.6 m at the shoulder, with throat beards, big rounded ears and a bluish-grey to reddish-brown coat crossed by four to twelve thin white stripes and a white chevron between the eyes. Cows are much smaller and have no horns. The name kudu comes from the Khoikhoi language, while the scientific name strepsiceros combines Greek words for twisting and horn.
Kudus range from Ethiopia and Kenya south to South Africa, preferring scrub woodland, rocky hills and even abandoned farmland rather than open plains, where predators could run them down. They browse leaves and shoots and are said to be especially fond of oranges and tangerines. Lions, hyenas and wild dogs are the main threats; leopards and cheetahs tend to take cows and calves. Kudus cannot outrun them on flat ground, so they bound over bushes, and when alarmed they freeze, their stripes making them hard to spot.
Social life is loose. Cows and calves live in groups of six to ten, occasionally up to twenty, while bulls mostly wander alone, joining females only to mate. Rival bulls sometimes spar by locking horns and shoving, and in rare cases two locked bulls cannot separate and both die. Gestation lasts about eight months, and a mother hides her newborn calf in vegetation for four to five weeks before it starts following her.
Humans are both threat and help: farms and deforestation shrink the kudu's range, yet wells and irrigation have opened up once-dry country. Hunters prize the horns, which are also made into the shofar blown at Rosh Hashanah, and the animal appears on Eritrea's 50-cent coin.
Source: Greater kudu
