Bluebuck

The adult male bluebuck in Leiden is 119 centimetres (47 in) tall at the withers, and is possibly the largest known specimen. According to Sclater and Thomas, the tallest specimen is the one in Paris, a male that stands 110 centimetres (45 in) at the shoulder; the specimen in Vienna, on the other hand, is the shortest, a 100-centimetre (40 in) tall female. The bluebuck was notably smaller than the roan and sable antelopes, and therefore the smallest member of its genus. The coat was a uniform bluish-grey, with a pale whitish belly, which was not contrasted on the flanks. The limbs had a faint dark line along their front surface. The forehead was brown, darker than the face, and the upper lip and patch in front of the eyes were lighter than the body. The neck-mane was directed forwards and not as developed as in the roan and sable antelopes, and the throat-mane was almost absent. Other differences between the bluebuck and its extant relatives included its shorter and blunter ears not tipped with black, a darker tail tuft (though little darker than its general colour), and smaller teeth. The bluebuck also lacked the contrasting black and white patterns seen on the heads of its relatives. As the old skins are presumably faded, it may be difficult to reconstruct the original colour of the bluebuck from them. …

Endemic to South Africa, the bluebuck was confined to the southwestern Cape. A 2003 study estimated the expanse of the historic range of the bluebuck at 4,300 square kilometres (1,700 sq mi), mainly along the southern coast of South Africa; fossils, however, have been discovered in a broader area that includes the southern and western CFR and even the highlands of Lesotho. Historical records give a rough estimate of its range. On 20 January 1774, Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg recorded a sighting in Tigerhoek, Mpumalanga. In March or April 1783, Levaillant claimed to have witnessed two specimens in Soetemelksvlei, Western Cape. Based on these notes, a 2009 study by the South African zoologist Graham I. H. Kerley and colleagues estimated the range of the bluebuck to be limited within a triangular area in the Western Cape, bounded by Caledon to the west, Swellendam to the northeast and Bredasdorp to the south. Rock paintings in the Caledon river valley of the Free State province in eastern South Africa have been identified as bluebucks, which also confirms the once wider distribution of the species.

In 1974, Klein studied the fossils of Hippotragus species in South Africa. Most of these were found to represent the bluebuck and the roan antelope. …

The bluebuck, as Klein puts it, became extinct before "qualified scientists could make observations on live specimens". According to historical accounts, the bluebuck formed groups of up to 20 individuals. Similarities to the roan and the sable antelopes in terms of dental morphology make it highly probable that the bluebuck was predominantly a selective grazer, and fed mainly on grasses. The row of premolars was longer than in others of the genus, implying the presence of dicots in the diet. A 2013 study by the U.S. paleontologist J. Tyler Faith and colleagues noted the scarcity of morphological evidence to show that the bluebuck could have survived the summers in the western margin of the Cape Floristic Region (CFR), when the grasses are neither palatable nor nutritious. This might have induced a west-to-east migration, because the eastern margin receives rainfall throughout the year while precipitation in the western margin is limited to winter. An 18th-century account suggests that females might have left their newborn calves in isolation and returned regularly to suckle them until the calves were old enough to join herds, which is similar to the behaviour of roan and sable antelopes. Akin to other grazing antelopes, the bluebuck probably calved mainly where rainfall, and thus the availability of grasses, peaked. …

The bluebuck rock paintings from the Caledon river valley have been attributed to Bushmen. They show six antelopes facing a man, and were supposedly inspired by shamanic trance; they may depict a Bushman visiting the spirit-world through a tunnel. The Bushmen possibly believed that the bluebuck had a supernatural potency, like other animals in their environment. The animals in the paintings are similar in proportion to the reedbuck, but the large ears, horns, and lack of a mane rule out species other than the bluebuck. A South African fable, The Story of the Hare, mentions a bluebuck (referred to as inputi) that, among other animals, is appointed to guard a kraal. The bluebuck is also mentioned in French novelist Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863); the animal is described as a "superb animal of a pale-bluish colour shading upon the gray, but with the belly and the insides of the legs as white as the driven snow".