Species profile
About the puku
The puku is a stocky, deep golden-brown antelope of seasonally flooded grassland, closely related to the lechwe and the kob. Rams carry short, heavily ridged, lyre-shaped horns; ewes are hornless. It gives a distinctive repeated whistle that carries far across a floodplain.
Tanzania holds the northern limit of the species, and the Kilombero valley, the Rufiji floodplain in Nyerere National Park and the Katavi plains are its Tanzanian centres. It is one of the antelope most worth travelling south for.
Life in the wild
Behavior & relationships
Behavior
Grazes morning and late afternoon, standing in the open on short floodplain grass. Whistles repeatedly when alarmed.
Social life
Small single-sex or mixed herds of about five to thirty; rams hold small breeding territories on the floodplain during the season.
What makes it remarkable
Special features
A shaggy golden coat, heavily ridged lyrate horns and a whistling alarm call unlike any other Tanzanian antelope.