Blesbok

Blesboks are medium sized antelopes standing about 0,9 m at the shoulder. Adult males have mean mass of 61,0 Kg, females are lighter and slightly smaller. It is difficult to recognise the sexes in the field, except that the horns of the females are more slender than those of the males and hardly thicken up at base. Both sexes carry the ridged horns which, rising from the top of the head, curve backwards and outwards and then slightly forwards towards the unridged tips.

The general body colour of a blesbok is a reddish-brown, without a purple gloss.

As a rule the white face blaze is divided by a narrow brown band between the eyes.

The blesbocks patch on the buttocks is generally not white but merely paler than the body colour. The basal end of the tail is white or pale brown.

On the outer surface the fore and hind limbs are dark brown in colour.

Habits:

Blesbok are diurnal, gregarious, grazing species. Their social organisation consists of territorial males, female herds and bachelor groups. The territorial males establish and maintain a mozaic of territorial varying in size from four to 28 ha on an all year  round basis.

There is a hierarchy among the members of the female herds, established by threat postures, horn-clashing or battling with the horns.

Blesbocks have pedal glands on the forefeet only and no inguinal glands. The preorbital glands are larger in the male than in the female and exude a yellowish-black sticky secretion, which mats the hair and forms tear marks on either side of the face. Territorial males after applying this secretion to grass stems transfer it from them to their horns.

Habitat:

Blesbok live in a narrow sector of coastal plains at an altitude of from 60 to 200 m above sea level within the Cape fynbos zone, a sandy, alluvial plain with stony ridges and gravel terraces. The plain provides the grasses on which they feed and an association of shrubs 300 to 700 mm high, including renosterbos, Elytropappus rhinocerotis.

The averages mean annual rainfall is about 550 mm. Areas of short grass, cover and drinking water are among their essential habitat requirements. 

On this farm occurring blesbuk are a naturally crossing of   bontebok and blesbok,  the appearance tends more towards Blesbok. The appearance of our blesbok tends more to the appearance of the bontebok.

Source:  JD Skinner and R H N Smithers:  The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion

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