Lesser kudu question please

Tim May

Tim May

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
The recent news that Knowsley has acquired lesser kudu has prompted the following:-

I’ve always known lesser kudu as Tragelaphus imberbis and this is, I think, the scientific name still used by most zoos.

However, according to the two recent publications “Ungulate Taxonomy” (Colin Groves & Peter Grubb; 2011) and “Handbook of the Mammals of the World” (Volume 2 Ungulates, 2011) the lesser kudu is in the genus Ammelaphus. (This name was first used for lesser kudu in 1912 and has recently been resurrected.)

Moreover, according to Groves, there are two distinct species of lesser kudu Ammelaphus imberbis and Ammelaphus australis.

Are the lesser kudu in Europe, labelled Tragelaphus imberbis, actually Ammelaphus imberbis or are they really Ammelaphus australis? Or are they a mixture?

I believe (at least according to ISIS) most of the lesser kudu in the USA are australis.
 
The reason for the name change is that Groves and many others argue that a genus must go back to the Miocene/Pliocene boundary (which is about 5.8 mya). Lesser Kudu goes back at least 10 mya and is thus well before the M/P boundary. They make the same argument for Eurasian Deer genera (Cervus, Panolia, Rucervus, etc.).

Having read the Groves and Grubb account on Ammelaphus several times, I still have a hard time buying into the two species split. This split seems to be based on more flimsy evidence than most of the others.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
They make the same argument for Eurasian Deer genera (Cervus, Panolia, Rucervus, etc.).
Click to expand...

Agreed. It’s hard to get used to the idea that the Siamese brow-antlered deer that I saw a number of times at Vincennes Zoo in Paris (and that I always think of as Cervus eldii siamensis) should be Panolia siamensis.
 
I find having this clear cut definition of what a genus is make a lot of sense. With something like the lesser kudu, if it were retained as Tragelaphus you would end up having the Greater Kudu, Bushbuck, and Common Eland being members of the same genus and also inhabiting the same environment. This is a situation you don't see with many (if any) other large mammals. With the new taxonomy each of the species is now in a different genus (Strepsiceros, Tragelaphus, Taurotragus) and would thus explain why there is no interbreeding between the groups.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
I find having this clear cut definition of what a genus is make a lot of sense.
Click to expand...

I don’t disagree with the logic, but it takes a while to adjust to the fact that scientific names I’ve known for years have changed.
 
Colin Groves will do that to you. Just wait until he gets his hands on carnivores. He's already done it to Primates and Marsupials.
 
I believe at least most of the lesser kudu's in Europe belong to the southern (sub)species. As Hannover and Dvur Kralove imported their stock from Tanzania and Kenya. I don't know where Basel sourced their animals, because that would be the third zoo where quite a lot of lesser kudu's were born and where they are kept since many years.
 
lintworm said:
I believe at least most of the lesser kudu's in Europe belong to the southern (sub)species. As Hannover and Dvur Kralove imported their stock from Tanzania and Kenya.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for that information; I didn't know where the original stock came from.

That means, using Groves' nomenclature, most of those in Europe would be Ammelaphus australis.
 
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