Colours of Wildlife: Sable Antelope
Created | Updated Oct 15, 2017
Sable Antelope
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!"
Finally I have for you what I consider to be Africa's flat-out-most-impressive antelope species! And that's saying a lot, since I have major love and admiration for all of our antelopes (not even to mention all the other things that live here). The Sable Antelope, Hippotragus niger, is one of our largest, the bull reaching a shoulder height of 1.45m/4'9", and a bodyweight of 270 kg/600 lbs. It also has some of the largest horns to be found on any antelope, reaching a length (around the curve) of 1.6 m/5'3" in the Giant Sable of Angola. Sables belong to the group called the 'horse antelopes', and indeed its full scientific name means 'Black Horse-Goat'. They are quite horse-like in build, accentuated by the stiff manes on their necks, but of course they are proper antelopes. Their closest relatives is the Roan Antelope which is somewhat larger but with much shorter horns. Also in the horse antelope group are the Gemsbok and the Scimitar Oryx. Sables occur somewhat patchily from Southern to Eastern Africa.
Colour Confusion
The situation of sexual dimorphism (where the sexes are different, physically or visually or both) manifests in different ways in different kinds of animals. In the antelope family, it is often the case that the males have horns, the females not. But there are many exceptions. In some species, like the Eland and the gemsbok, the females can have horns even longer than those of the males, but more slender. In the sable, the females also have horns, though these are shorter and less curved than those of adult males. But they also differ in another aspect: coloration! My sable painting shows the glossy black and white coat pattern of a big bull; in contrast, adult females (as well as young males) have a buffy to russet brown coloration instead of black, but with similar white patches. Females from the southern part of the range do become much darker as they age, but never fully glossy black. At least one illustrator has made a big mistake in portraying these beasts – in a children's book about animals of the world, he portrayed sable antelopes in various scenes, in herds, and with the males, females and young all black-and-white! That was in the seventies, a great age for illustrated children's book – and indeed apart from the coloration mix-up, the sables are portrayed beautifully. Today of course, photos dominate, and I personally think it's a bit of a shame for the loss of beautiful art; present-day illustrators really have a hard time coming close, aesthetically, to the quality of illustration that used to be the norm in all kinds of books and encyclopaedias of the past. But today we have much easier and quicker access to information, making a slip-up in the portrayal of an animal species much less likely – at least for artists who do put in the time to do research and accumulate many different reference images to work from. I think we may be in for a renaissance in quality illustration of work dealing with wildlife, nature and science in general. Even with all the photos that are accessible now, we can still do much, aesthetically, with a finely crafted painting that we can't easily do with a photo. This is one thing I am aiming to do and demonstrate with my art …
Sable Society
Sables are quite social species, with a few different ways in which they live and arrange themselves. The typical grouping is the breeding herd, which is mostly females, with their calves, and young males up to three years old, and a single big, adult bull who dominates the show. These occupy territories, which the bull marks out and defends. He breaks branches and strips bark from trees to show his presence in his territory, and also leaves scent marks from glands between his hooves.
Then there are other adult bulls who live singly, in between the breeding herd territories, but which might try to displace one of the dominant bulls from his territory and females. This can be done simply through showing off: sables will posture, standing side to side and raising their heads to show off the thickness of their necks and length of their horns. If this isn't enough, they might escalate the conflict into a fight. They 'kneel' (actually, going down on their wrists) face to face and fence with their horns. Sometimes one or both get seriously hurt. But the winner gets the spoils: the territory and the females.
The final grouping sables live in, is the bachelor herd. Males older than about three years, are chased out of the breeding herd by the dominant bull. They often come together into small bachelor herds, numbering up to 20; the older ones may eventually leave to seek their own territories and breeding herds.
But sable herds aren't particularly stable. Big breeding herds may split up or join together or move around in search of good food and water. Dominant bulls can be very aggressive, and try to claim females from other herds passing through his territory.
The kind of habitat sables prefer, is fairly varied: they need long grass, shelter in the form of trees, and access to drinking water. They also don't just eat any tall grass, but prefer it fresh and recently grown. Towards the end of the growing season, when fresh grass becomes scarce, they will browse leaves and twigs from trees and bushes, and will also eat a few kinds of wild fruit. They often stay close to wetlands like marshes and swamps, on the edge of which there will often be lush grass growing year-round. They avoid dense woodlands and forests, as well as open grassland, or areas where the grass is very short or sparse.
In the herd, when breeding season comes, the dominant male will inspect his females by sniffing their urine. This apparently counts as foreplay, as do nudging, chasing, and kicking. The mating act itself is over in seconds! Gestation is about 8-9 months. The calf is born a light fawn colour with the white markings hardly visible; for a while it hides away while its mother feeds; she returns to suckle it a couple of times per day. At three weeks the calf becomes bold and will leave shelter to play with the other youngsters in the herd; these form 'kindergarten groups' inside the main herds, sometimes even roaming a short distance away from the others – but always under the watchful eyes of their mothers and the big bull.
The Angolan Giant Sable
The biggest and most impressive subspecies of the sable antelope is the Giant Sable, Hippotragus niger variani, of Angola. This subspecies is large in body but mainly differs in its horns being significantly longer and more swept-back than those of other sables. It also has subtly different facial markings. This sable only occurs in a small part of northern Angola. During the civil war in Angola – which followed upon its independence from Portugal, in the aftermath of which several groups fought each other to determine who should be the new rulers – it was feared that these sables were wiped out entirely. South Africa also was involved in that war – in an unofficial capacity; it was pretended that we were only defending the border with South West Africa (now the independent country of Namibia, but then still under the control of South Africa) but actually our troops were going well inside Angola, fighting on the side of one of the contending groups (UNITA) and against the others. America was 'unofficially' involved as well, also favouring the anti-communist UNITA and the FNLA, while Cuba later entered on the side of the communist group MPLA. It was a total mess. Wildlife in the country was slaughtered, the troops often picking them off for fun with their automatic weapons, and there was lots of poaching of elephants and other things being perpetrated by army 'big wigs' on all sides, which netted them vast profits. In all of this, the poor sable antelopes, even though they were giants, hardly stood a chance. After the war the country was in ruins and slowly started picking up its pieces and putting them back together; for long there was no news of the sables, but at last, some were spotted, and today we are aware of small herds of them still hanging on. The Angolan people are actually proud of these majestic beasts and they are now given recognition and legal protection. Let us hope that this is enough to make them flourish.
Other sables in Africa, like pretty much everything else, are under pressure from still-expanding human populations, from ongoing habitat destruction, and from competition with cattle and other domestic grazing animals. Nevertheless, they are present in many game reserves and on game farms, netting some economic benefits from hunting (which I don't like at all) but also just from regular tourism. I of course do favour 'shooting' them with a camera, and they are indeed some of the most photogenic things to be found on this continent!
