A Uganda kob appears on Uganda’s coat of arm and the crest crane (bird species) which symbolizes the abundance of wildlife with the country Uganda.
Ugandan kob is a subspecies of the kob, and a type of antelope? It is commonly found in sub-Saharan Africa in South Sudan bordering Kidepo valley national park, Uganda kobs can be seen in most of Uganda’s protected areas and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Natural home
Uganda kobs are natives to East Africa, also seen in the Southern Sudan, to the west of the Nile, Uganda (Pian upe game reserve, Murchison falls and Kidepo valley national park and the north-eastern thus Uganda’s protected areas of Queen Elizabeth national park bordering Democratic Republic of Congo. Its range used to extend into northwestern Tanzania, where it grazed the grasslands margining Lake Victoria, and into southwestern Kenya, but it has been eradicated from these countries. They are always seen in open or wooded savanna, within a reasonable distance of water, and it also occurs in grasslands near rivers and lakes plus Sargent waters.
Sex and size
Ugandan kobs are similar in appearance to the impala but the males kobs have horns, which are lyre-shaped, strongly ridged and divergent. Males are slightly larger than females, being 90 to 100 cm (3.0 to 3.3 ft) at the shoulder, with an average weight of 94 kg. while females are 82 to 92 cm (2.7 to 3.0 ft) at the shoulder and on average weigh about 63 kg. Apart from the throat patch, muzzle, eye ring and inner ear, which are white, the coat is golden to reddish-brown, the color differentiating it from other kob subspecies. The belly and inside of the legs are white, and the front of the forelegs are black.
Feeding
Ugandan kobs are herbivores and feed largely on grasses and reeds. The females and young males form loose groups of varying size which range according to food availability, often moving along watercourses and grazing in valley bottoms. One group in South Sudan was recorded as travelling 150 to 200 km (93 to 124 mi) during the dry season. Sometimes non-breeding males form their own groups. Females become sexually mature in their second year, but males do not start breeding until they are older.
Reproduction
Larger populations of kob tend to have a lek mating system, the females living in loose groups and only visiting the traditional breeding grounds in order to mate. For this purpose, males hold small territories of up to 200 m (660 ft) in diameter, the smallest territories being in the centre of crowded leks. Calving takes place at the end of the rainy season; a single calf is born in November or December, after a gestation period of about nine months.