Whats the difference between a Livingdton and Cape eland?

Thanks

I believe cape eland are smaller have a lighter color, no stripes and a more reddish tuft in their forehead and are found in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana only.

If you do a "search" theres a good article on them. The Livingston and cape and Patterson's essentially all the same animal, just different areas, running from RSA up to Somalia. There's also a Lord Derby Eland which is more central/West Africa located. The "cape" or common Eland also found in Zim. slight variations due to locality. The all pretty good sized, but easy to kill. Used an 06 on mine. One shot, 165gr Nosler w/59grs 4350. Might want to go to www.rowlandward.com and look at their list of types. I think they only show the one commmon and Lord Derby.

I searched "difference between Livingston and Cape Eland" and got the write up. article by a hunt setter upper, African Hunting, I think.

There are only two types of Eland, Lord Derby's and Common Eland.

The Common Eland is broken into the sub-species because of their respective locations, but are not biologically different.

Great for the SCI record books and finances !!

quote:

Great for the SCI record books and finances !!

Exactly !

o dear - SCI doing something goofy for money??? my o my

In all fairness to SCI, Roland Ward has just as many species listed. The names are not quite identical, but they list them separately on Eland.

Heck, blame it on the old colonial scientists who were trying to achieve immortality by naming a "nondescript" species after themselves or friends. A look at Gazelles and Hartebeest shows that in a hurry...

quote:

Originally posted by Neil-PH:
There are only two types of Eland, Lord Derby's and Common Eland.

The Common Eland is broken into the sub-species because of their respective locations, but are not biologically different.

Great for the SCI record books and finances !!

Neil has it almost 100% correct, and stated in lay terms so everyone can understand:

In more scientific jargon Neil-PH said:

There are only two species in the genus Taurotragus, namely T. derbianus the Gaint or Lord Derby eland, and T. oryx (Pallas, 1766), or the Common Eland.

Because of real morphological differences between the common eland living in different areas, from the southern Cape to Somalia, there are 3 recognized subspecies. These are: The Cape eland, T. o. oryx (Pallas, 1766) in the southern parts, The Livingstone eland, T. o. livingstonii (P. L. Slater, 1864) in (about) Zambia, and Tanzania, and lastly the Patterson's eland, T. o. patersonianus (Lydeckker, 1906) in the extreme northern parts, like southern Somalia. Note, there are some overlap in ranges.

Despite much truth in the remark about colonial scientists and name-giving, the zoological community still recognize these three subspecies as "different enough from each other to be called subspecies, but not different enough to warrant a separate species" for any one of them. [Reference: Mammals of theSouthern African Subregion. By J D Skinner & C T Chimimba, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pages 638 and 639]

I envy those who have hunted a "Taurotragus-Slam" of two species, with all three subspecies of common eland?