Tragelaphus conundrum

[jbnbsn99]

So I have been thinking a lot today about the genus Tragelaphus. Always been my favorite genus for some reason. I was lucky enough to get to read the section on their taxonomy from the new Groves and Grubb book today and it got me to thinking.

Under the traditional taxonomy (1 possibly 2 genera) we would have up to 5 species coexisting in the same environment. Say within 1 park you would have Common Eland, Greater and Lesser Kudu, Bushbuck, and maybe a Sitatunga in Tanzania. The reason this got me to thinking, is there any other case where you can have up to 5 members of the same species coexisting in the exact same location? I have gone though most other major herbivore groups of mammals in my head and cannot come up with a similar scenario.

All this said, I fully support the concept of having Tragelaphus split into 5 genera. The number of species is much more highly questionable.

 

[DavidBrown]

So I have been thinking a lot today about the genus Tragelaphus. Always been my favorite genus for some reason. I was lucky enough to get to read the section on their taxonomy from the new Groves and Grubb book today and it got me to thinking.

Under the traditional taxonomy (1 possibly 2 genera) we would have up to 5 species coexisting in the same environment. Say within 1 park you would have Common Eland, Greater and Lesser Kudu, Bushbuck, and maybe a Sitatunga in Tanzania. The reason this got me to thinking, is there any other case where you can have up to 5 members of the same species coexisting in the exact same location? I have gone though most other major herbivore groups of mammals in my head and cannot come up with a similar scenario.

All this said, I fully support the concept of having Tragelaphus split into 5 genera. The number of species is much more highly questionable.

With birds it is certainly common to see multiple species of the same or closely related genera co-existing like raptors or waterfowl in a pond. Usually they have different niches, although some may overlap. With the example you are talking about the eland would be out grazing, while the kudus and bushbuck would be in the woodland, and the sitatunga would be out in the wetlands. When you get out to Africa you will see that there are many different microhabitats coexisting within savanna-woodland areas and so it makes sense that there are multiple species that have evolved into that mosaic of habitats. The same thing was going on in North America and around the world before the Pleistocene extinction removed large terrestrial mammals. Where the cities of modern Southern California are now there were are least 4 species of proboscideans wandering around 10,000 years ago (Columbian mammoth, Imperial mammoth, Channel Islands mammoth, mastodons).

 

[Javan Rhino]

So I have been thinking a lot today about the genus Tragelaphus. Always been my favorite genus for some reason. I was lucky enough to get to read the section on their taxonomy from the new Groves and Grubb book today and it got me to thinking.

Under the traditional taxonomy (1 possibly 2 genera) we would have up to 5 species coexisting in the same environment. Say within 1 park you would have Common Eland, Greater and Lesser Kudu, Bushbuck, and maybe a Sitatunga in Tanzania. The reason this got me to thinking, is there any other case where you can have up to 5 members of the same species coexisting in the exact same location? I have gone though most other major herbivore groups of mammals in my head and cannot come up with a similar scenario.

All this said, I fully support the concept of having Tragelaphus split into 5 genera. The number of species is much more highly questionable.

I would imagine that some African ranges would carry several species of Cercopithecines. Likewise Indonesia/South East Asia would probably carry a good amount of Trachypithecines?