Facts about the Common Impala Antelope “Macdonald Antelope”

Know these about the common impala “Macdonald Antelope”

Commonly found in the Eastern and southern parts of Africa, the impala is a medium-sized antelope. Only two subspecies of these small antelopes are recognised, that is to say, the common impala and the dark black faced impala. There are several types of antelope, such as Eland, Kudu, Waterbuck, Bushbuck, Nyala, Common Reedbuck, and  Mountain Reedbuck.

The male Impala has two horns, and the female Impala has no horns. The male impala is called a ram, and the female is known as an ewe.

The male Impala weighs between 55 to 80 kilograms, and the female is quite smaller than the male. A female impala weighs 40 to 60 kilograms.

The impalas are so active during the day hours; however, they will cease activities during the tough, hot hours of the day.

The impalas are very high jumpers and fast runners. With an approximate run speed of more than 75 km/hr. Impalas can jump as high as 10 feet.

They mainly feed and rest at night.

On to the diet list, impalas eat grass, forbs, monocots and acacia pods only when they come across them.

The gestation period of impalas takes 7 months, and more often, a single calf is born.
Immediately after birth, the calf is covered by its mother for the first few hours after its birth. Later, they join another infant group in accompaniment with the mothers of each calf in the group.

After a period of about months, a female little impala will still stay with its mother, but a male will be forced out of the group to join the male bachelor’s group.p

At the age of 4, a male Impala will be sexually mature. It will start gaining territories in order to gain access to the females.

Most baby impalas are born during the daytime because by this time most of the impala’s predators will be at their resting time and the mother feels safe.

Impalas have to take water every day, but mostly not between hot hours. This is because they know their predators go and lie aside from the stream bank so that they can attack them as they try to drink water.

You will rarely see an impala on its own. They are always in different groups. Females and young ones will keep in groups of over 100 members, whereas males will keep themselves in bachelor groups of about 60 members.

According to the availability of suitable food, impalas will make seasonal migrations from high to low grounds.

The impalas have a high sense of smell, hearing and sight. With these, it easily detects and runs away from predators that may attack it.

While on your safari vacation in uganda, the impalas can be found at Lake Mburo National Park, with a quite a large number of other animals you could also love to watch and also know about.