Species profile
About the gerenuk
The gerenuk is unmistakable: an impossibly long neck and legs on a slender gazelle body, with a small wedge-shaped head. Its speciality is standing vertically on its hind legs, using a foreleg to steady a branch, and browsing at a height no other antelope of its size can reach.
It never needs to drink, taking all its water from leaves, and it can therefore live in country too dry for most grazers. In Tanzania it is a northern dryland species, best looked for in Tarangire and Mkomazi, and its Tanzanian numbers have declined sharply with the loss of dry bush habitat.
Life in the wild
Behavior & relationships
Behavior
Diurnal browser. Rises on the hind legs to feed, holding the pose for long periods, and relies on stillness and cover rather than flight.
Social life
Small groups of a female with young, or of two to six animals; males are territorial and often solitary.
What makes it remarkable
Special features
A neck and limb structure that supports prolonged bipedal browsing, and complete independence from drinking water.
