J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol
School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, Johannesburg, 2193, South Africa.
Published: November 2005
The nychthemeral activity patterns of a population of female black wildebeest inhabiting a shadeless environment were surveyed periodically over 1 year. The wildebeest fed mostly at night, with the proportion of feeding at night increasing when ambient conditions were hotter. Inactive periods were spent mostly lying during cooler weather but standing as days became hotter. We suggest that the entire suite of behavioural adjustments is beneficial to heat exchange with the environment. Behaviour patterns were markedly different during one warm weather survey, from the other warm weather surveys, when an 8-month dry spell had just been broken. We suggest that this may reflect the availability of water for autonomic thermoregulation, a consequent decreased reliance on behavioural thermoregulation, and a release of the thermal constraints on foraging. Our results help to explain the ability of black wildebeest to maintain body core temperature within a very narrow range despite being exposed to an environment with large nychthemeral variations in thermal conditions and offering little in the way of microclimate selection.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-005-0030-4 | DOI Listing |
Nat Commun
April 2024
Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
The blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) is a keystone species in savanna ecosystems from southern to eastern Africa, and is well known for its spectacular migrations and locally extreme abundance. In contrast, the black wildebeest (C. gnou) is endemic to southern Africa, barely escaped extinction in the 1900s and is feared to be in danger of genetic swamping from the blue wildebeest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Parasitol Parasites Wildl
December 2022
Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology, Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, 3-18-8 Ueda, Morioka, 020-8550, Japan.
Paramphistomes, commonly known as rumen flukes, are digenean parasites that infect ruminants. Accurate morphological identification of paramphistome species is challenging and often neglected. For instance, it requires sagittal midline sections of adult flukes, which are difficult to prepare.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZ Naturforsch C J Biosci
September 2020
Laboratory for Ecological Chemistry, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa.
Using gas chromatography (GC) in conjunction with electron impact mass spectrometry and retention-time comparison, 94 compounds, ranging from 2-methyl-2-propenal to octadecanoic acid, were identified in the interdigital secretions of male and female black wildebeests, Connochaetes gnou (also known as the white-tailed gnu). The constituents of these secretions belong to many different compound classes, including hydrocarbons, alcohols, aromatics and aliphatic carbonyl compounds including carboxylic acids as well as carboxylic acid esters. Relatively small quantitative differences were found between the male and female interdigital secretions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParasit Vectors
January 2020
Department of Wildlife Diseases, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Str. 17, 10315, Berlin, Germany.
Background: Knowledge about parasitic infections is crucial information for animal health, particularly of free-ranging species that might come into contact with livestock and humans.
Methods: We investigated the seroprevalence of three tissue-cyst-forming apicomplexan parasites (Toxoplasma gondii, Neospora caninum and Besnoitia besnoiti) in 506 individuals of 12 wildlife species in Namibia using in-house enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (indirect ELISAs applying purified antigens) for screening and immunoblots as confirmatory tests. We included six species of the suborder Feliformia, four species of the suborder Caniformia and two species of the suborder Ruminantia.
Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol
April 2020
Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; Department of Medical Bioscience, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Electronic address:
Wild antelope are some of the fastest land animals in the world, presenting with high oxidative and glycolytic skeletal muscle metabolism. However, no study has investigated their muscle antioxidant capacity, and may assist in understanding their physical ability and certain pathophysiological manifestations, such as capture myopathy. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant activities superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione reductase (GR), as well as five key regulatory enzymes that serve as markers of glycolysis (phosphofructokinase (PFK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)), the tricarboxylic acid cycle (citrate synthase (CS)), β-oxidation (3-hydroxyacetyl CoA dehydrogenase (3HAD)) and the phosphagen pathway (creatine kinase (CK)), in the Vastus lateralis muscle of six southern African wild antelope species (mountain reedbuck, springbok, blesbok, fallow deer, black wildebeest and kudu).
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