Damaliscus lunatus

The word tope or topi is Swahili, and was first recorded by the German explorer Gustav Fischer on the ancient city island of Lamu off the Kenyan coast. Other names recorded in East Africa by various German explorers were mhili in Kisukuma and jimäla in Kinyamwezi. The Luganda name was simäla according to Neumann, or nemira according to Lugard. ==Taxonomy==

The first thing published about this antelope was the afore-mentioned painting of a young male sassayby by Daniell from 1820, but the first scientific description was by William John Burchell in 1824. In 1812 hunters attached to Burchell's expedition shot a female animal in what is now Free State, in what is thought to be the southernmost part of its range. Burchell named it the "crescent-horned antelope", Antilope lunata. Burchell had the horns and frontlet sent to London, this is now the type specimen. Charles Hamilton Smith was the first to equate the sassayby with Antilope lunata in the 1827 section on ruminants in the English translation of George Cuvier's Le Règne Animal. An 1822–1824 British expedition across the Sahara to the ancient kingdom of Bornu, returned with single set of horns of an antelope known in the language of that land as a korrigum. In 1836 these horns were classified as a new species. Until the early 2000s the generally accepted taxonomic interpretation of the different geographic populations of topi antelopes was that of Ansell in 1972, who recognised five subspecies. In 2003 Fenton Cotterill published a paper advocating splitting the southern, nominate subspecies into two independent species under something he invented called the 'Recognition Species Concept', and regarding the northern four subspecies as a different, provisional species (Damaliscus korrigum). The IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group followed this interpretation in 2008. In the 2011 book Ungulate Taxonomy, Colin Groves and Grubb went even further and split the topi into nine species. They used what they called the "diagnostic phylogenetic species concept" to split this species and many others based on small qualitative physical differences between different geographic populations, based on small sample sets, and often without publishing any research supporting their positions. This proved controversial among mammalogists. As of 2021 the ASM Mammal Diversity Database thus decided to reject the Groves and Grubb taxonomic interpretation of the topi in its entirety, and in this case also reject the 2005 Mammal Species of the World, essentially reverting to the 1972 Ansell view with the addition of superstes as a synonym of D. lunatus. Topi To the north of Lake Bangweulu in Zambia, across the border and beyond the rift valley, above the north shore of Lake Rukwa in Tanzania, the topi subspecies that occurs there is generally recognised as Damaliscus lunatus jimela, and usually just called a 'topi'. This subspecies has horns with a lyrate profile. ==Description==

, South Africa in Uganda Adult topi are 150 to 230 cm in length. Their bodies are chestnut brown or reddish brown. They have a mask-like dark colouration on the face and their tail tufts are black; the upper forelimbs and thighs have greyish, dark purple or bluish-black-coloured patches. They range in mass from . Head-and-body length can range from and the tail measures . They are a tall species, ranging in height from at the shoulder. Males tend to be larger and darker than females. Topi also have preorbital glands that secrete clear oil and the front legs have hoof glands. Topi spoor is very similar to that of oryx and hartebeest. The tracks are about 8 cm in length, the two impressed hooves are narrow and point inward distally, and the base of the hooves are bulbous and more deeply indented into the soil than the rest of the track. Tsessebe The most significant difference between the tsessebe, the southernmost subspecies, and the other topi subspecies is the incline of the horns, with the tsessebe having horns which are placed further apart from each other as one moves distally. This has the effect of the space between them having a more lunate profile when seen from a certain angle, as opposed to lyrate, more like that of a hartebeest. Tsessebe populations show variation as one moves from South Africa to Botswana, with southerly populations having on average the lightest pelage colour, smallest size and the least robust horns. Common tsessebe do not differ significantly from the Bangweulu tsessebe, the northernmost population, but in general the populations from that part of Zambia are on average the darkest-coloured and have the most robust horns, although differences are slight and individuals in both populations show variation in these characteristics which almost completely overlap each other. ==Distribution==

The topi has a long but patchy distribution in Southern, East and West Africa it prefers certain grasslands in arid and savanna biomes. Human hunting and habitat modification have further isolated the subpopulations. Topi herds can take the form of "perennially sedentary-dispersion", "perennially mobile-aggregated" or something in between. This depends on the habitat and ecology of the areas they are in. Males establish territories that attract herds of females with their offspring. Depending on the size of the patches, territories can be as large as 4 km2 and sometimes border each other. In more densely populated areas, like those of Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda, topis move across the plain and set up territories during resting periods. ==Ecology==

Habitat Topi are primarily found in grasslands, treeless open plains, and lightly wooded savannas. They prefer flat lowlands but they are also occasionally found in rolling uplands (for example in Rwanda), and are very rarely seen at higher altitudes than 1,500 m above sea level. In ecotone habitats between woodlands and open grasslands, they stay along the edge using the shade in hot weather. Topi use vantage points, such as termite mounds, to get a good look at their surroundings. In Botswana, they spend most of their time in open habitats, primarily grassland, but will retreat to mopane woodland during the rainy season. their diet is almost exclusively grass. The topi is a selective feeder and uses its elongated muzzle and flexible lips to forage for the youngest blades of grass. Topi are not as capable as other grazers at feeding from short sward, and during the rainy season avoid both long mature grass and very short pasture, whereas in the dry season they move to any area with the most grass. They drink more when relying on dry grass. Nevertheless, topi tend to have a low predation rate when other species are present. ==Behaviour==

Topi declare their territory through a variety of behaviours. Territorial behaviour includes moving in an erect posture, high-stepping, defecating in a crouch stance, ground-horning, mud packing, shoulder-wiping and grunting. Dominant males occupy the centre of the leks, so females are more likely to mate at the centre than at the periphery of the lek. In areas such as the Akagera National Park in Rwanda and Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, topi males establish leks which are territories that are clustered together. These territories have little value outside of the males in them. The most dominant males occupy the centre of the lek cluster and the less dominant occupy the periphery. The parenting of the topi has characteristics of both the "hider" system (found in the blesbok) and the "follower" system (found in the blue wildebeest). Calves can follow their mothers immediately after birth and "may not 'lie out'". On the other hand, females separate themselves from the herd to calve and calves commonly seek hiding places during the night. A young topi stays with its mother for a year or until a new calf is born. Both yearling males and females can be found in bachelor herds. ==Conservation status==

, South AfricaThe total population of D. lunatus was estimated to be 300,000 by the IUCN in 1998, so it was assessed at 'lower risk (conservation dependent)', and stated to be declining. As of 2016, interspecific competition is believed to have played a primary role, with the decline in tsessebe being caused by the proliferation of other antelope species, which was itself due to the opening of man-made watering holes in the game parks. Closing watering holes is believed to increase habitat heterogeneity in the parks, which would favour the tsessebe. Initially an uncommon animal, in the 2000s the population on private game reserves in both South Africa and Zimbabwe, primarily stocked for the trophy hunting industry, began to grow quickly, with large jumps seen in the 2010s. As a large percentage of these animals are found in wild conditions in their natural areas of distribution, this is seen as contributing to the recovery of the species in South Africa. Nonetheless, there are some questions as to the potential danger of it hybridising with the also native red hartebeest which are common throughout its range, and with which hybrids have been recorded in both ranches and in National Parks. Such hybrids are likely fully fertile, and some fear such miscegenation could potentially pollute the gene pool in the future. In northern Botswana, on the other hand, populations declined from 1996 to 2013, tsessebe populations in the Okavango Delta declined by 73%, with a 87% decline in the Moremi Game Reserve in particular. A study compared the situation with around Lake Rukwa in Tanzania in the 1950s, a paper about game populations and the elephant problem, which might create the open habitat required through their bulldozing behaviour. ==References==