Colours of Wildlife: Bongo
Created | Updated Nov 6, 2016
Bongo
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
Here we have a favourite of mine, a Bongo! This species, Tragelaphus eurycerus, is not nearly as well known as it should be. Bongos are huge, powerful, slab-sided antelopes of African forests. They belong to the tribe of spiral-horned antelopes, which include the Kudu and perhaps the bongo's closest relative, the much smaller Bushbuck. Together, the spiral-horned antelopes are closely related to domestic and wild cattle and Buffaloes, rather than to the other antelopes – though they all belong to the family Bovidae, along with goats and sheep. The family is distinguished by having unbranched horns, with bony cores overlain by horny sheaths. It is an extremely diverse family in Africa, and the bongo is one of its most spectacular representatives.
Bongo of the Congo
The Congo River is Africa's largest, in terms of water volume, although the Nile is longer. The basin of the congo is covered in prime, moist rainforest, and this is indeed where the bongos live! Actually they prefer somewhat disturbed forest. In nature, this is found at: sites where big trees have crashed down, form old age or strong winds; where unusually high floods have uprooted trees along riverbanks; where mud slides have happened on steeps slopes; where there have been recent forest fires; where elephants have been browsing and uprooting small trees; where large numbers of bamboo plants have died after flowering; or where humans have chopped down trees on a small scale, and left the land for new trees and shrubs to grow again. These disturbed areas in the rainforests let in sunlight to the forest floor, causing a rampant growth of soft herbs and shrubs, vines, and young trees. These have the soft leaves that the bongo love to browse on. Disturbed sites only remain attractive to the bongo for a short period, since tall trees soon re-establish themselves (in the rainforests, trees can increase their height by two or three metres/yards or more per year) and shade the forest floor again.
As a consequence, bongos are not as territorial as other antelopes, but roam over large regions, that overlap with the ranges of other bongos. They also don't form very strong pair bonds. Bongo males and females are very similar, both having the long, stout horns. The male is somewhat larger than the female. Bongo males keep growing sturdier and heavier throughout their lifetimes, and also become darker, starting with the neck and forequarters. Very old males can be almost black all over. They reach a bodyweight of about 400 kg/880 lbs, making them the heaviest antelopes after the elands. Bongos exude glandular secretions from all over their bodies rather than from specific glands such as are found on the faces and feet of other antelopes. They therefore leave their scent diffused in the air where they go. Bongo males track down females and mate with them, if accepted. From there, the male leave the female alone to give birth and raise the calf. At first she hides her calf in the dense foliage while she goes out to browse; later she will often join other females with young calves to form a 'crèche' group. Bongos reach sexual maturity at two years, but males are unlikely to be mating until they reach the age of 4 or 5. They can live to the age of 20.
Bongos are somewhat unusual among the spiral-horned antelopes. They are similar in appearance and coloration to male and female nyalas (which I'll feature here soon), bushbucks, and sitatungas (especially the female), but are larger and heavier, like the eland. Also unlike the smaller species, the male and female both have horns. For this reason, bongos have sometimes been classified as closer to elands, and at other times given a genus of their own. But at present, studies seem to show that they're closest to the bushbuck, which is the smallest of the spiral-horned antelopes! From a mutual ancestor, either the bongo increased greatly in size, or the bushbuck became unusually small – or both! The feature of males and females both having horns, may not be such a big deal, but a matter of hormones. Horned females are widely found in the antelopes, mainly the larger species – so maybe an increase in body size is linked to the same hormones involved in growing horns. In the sheep and goats, horned females occur as a general rule, even though most species are quite small compared to the large antelopes.
Apart from the Congo basin, bongos also occur in equatorial West Africa – where they are rare and threatened as a result of the massive degree of the destruction of the rainforests in the region. In the Congo they are fairly secure. Bongos also occur in mountain forests in Kenya, where they can occur as high as 4 000 m/13 000 ft above sea level. The mountain bongo is larger, taller and darker than the equatorial form. Its distribution is quite a small region, and it is much more vulnerable to habitat destruction. But because it prefers disturbed areas, bongos can actually benefit from areas being logged and allowed to re-generate. These eastern bongos now are reduced to only about 100 individuals in the wild, outnumbered by a zoo population of about 250! Overall, western bongos are not endangered. However, I have a big gripe. In seeking out photographs to use as reference for my paintings, I come across many shots of hunters posing with the animals they killed. It's a general gripe with all our antelopes, but I get particularly hot under the collar when seeing this done to bongos. Here we have such a beautiful and magnificent animal, and some rich Americans think it's terrific to come over here and kill them so they can pose with its corpse for a photograph! Honestly folks … please try to think of something better to do. Why not do the whole bit, having the 'bush' experience, tracking and stalking but taking a photograph for a trophy instead? Leave the animal alive for others to enjoy, to live out a long life, to have some more kiddies, whatever it wants to do. Who the hell cares if this is less 'manly'? These days everybody have digital cameras and cell phone cameras, but you can get yourself some very good equipment. And actually doing this may prove to you that getting a good photo is even more difficult than getting a shot in that would kill the animal quickly and cleanly. But that's the challenge. And taking a good photo is an act of creativity, not destruction. But do the work, take the pics, and put them online if they're good … THAT will actually do no harm and indeed will do a lot to help by raising awareness in a good and creative way of the beauty and joy and wonder of Africa's native animals and the need to conserve them … for their own sakes as well as ours.
