3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue 1 & 2 Jan - Apr 2 3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue | Page 45

he dropped from his mother’s womb with blood
shades still all over and extinguished his love
& affection for his walk which was soon to
start. Within a few minutes, the two souls
were blessed with a Slight Rain.
About the Animal:
Topi is one of Africa’s most common and
most widespread antelopes. Topi resembles
hartebeest but have a darker coloration and lack
sharply angled horns.
A lean, sleek animal built for sustained speed,
the Topi looks like a smaller and darker
hartebeest, with higher forequarters sloping
to lower hindquarters, but it has a less-elongated
head and ordinary-looking horns, which are
similar in both sexes.
115 cm (45 inches) high and 130 kg (290
pounds),with horns 30–40 cm (12–16 inches)
long. The topi has one of the most variable
social and mating systems of all the
antelopes.
Gestation
is
eight
months,
and the single calf hides for up to three
weeks.
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.
Human hunting and habitat destruction have
further isolated their population. They feature
15 years of life expectancy and are listed on
IUCN red list as least concern.
Females are about 20 percent smaller but
otherwise are similar to males, which average
Image Credit - Wikimedia Commons
Vol 4 | Issue 1 |Jan - Feb 2019
45