Family: Bovidae.
Status: No special status.
Size: Shoulder height 23 to 28
inches (58 to 70 cm); weight 30 to 60 pounds.
Diet: Herbivore.
Characteristics: Dainty, graceful, quick.
Area: East Africa.
Offspring: One offspring once or twice per year.
Predators: Lion, cheetah, jackal, leopard, wild dog, spotted hyena.
·
Thomson’s gazelle is one of the 10 fastest mammals in
the world, at 50 miles per hour.
· Thomson’s gazelles are also referred to as “tommies.”
·
Males
mark their territories and will tolerate familiar males in their territories as
long as they remain subordinate and do not approach the females.
Thomson's gazelle is
the best-known and most common gazelle in East Africa. It’s named for Joseph Thomson, a nineteenth
century Scottish naturalist and explorer who was the first
European to enter several regions of eastern Africa. This small, graceful
gazelle has light reddish-brown fur on its back, with a lighter, fawn coloured
stripe underneath and a black stripe leading from the foreleg to the
hindquarters. The belly is white. Males have long ringed horns, while females
have short, smooth horns or no horns at all. They live in either same-sex
groups of up to 100, or mixed groups of as many as 700 gazelles. Thomson’s
gazelle is most active in the early morning and the evening. They graze on
various grasses and plants and during the rainy season can go without drinking
for long periods. During dry periods, they need to be near a water source,
sometimes travelling as much as 100 miles to find one. During migration, herds
may number into the thousands, joining up with Grant’s gazelles—a similar, but
larger gazelle. Although their numbers have declined due to hunting and the
spread of agriculture, the population of Thompson’s gazelle is stable. This may
be because only cheetahs are faster and can run them down during a chase. Even
so, gazelles can turn more quickly than cheetahs, so a chase doesn’t
necessarily end in a victory for the cheetah. When alarmed, they spring stiffly
up and down in a manner referred to as stotting or pronking.
The grassy plains and savanna of Kenya, North Tanzania and southeast Sudan, from sea-level to 19,000 feet.
Mating usually takes place in winter, with births taking
place 5 months later, in spring. The female leaves the herd a few days before
giving birth. She may stay alone with her baby for up to 3 weeks. Weaning takes
place after the youngster reaches two months of age, and they become full grown
within a year. Males are then expelled from the herd to go and join a bachelor
herd. This helps to avoid inbreeding. The lifespan of a Thomson’s gazelle is
from 10 to 13 years, up to 15 years in captivity.