Springbok

Springbok eat plants.

They eat grass when it rains. When it is dry, they eat leaves and melons.

Springbok change their food with the seasons. In the rainy season they graze on young, juicy grass. In the dry season they browse on leaves, flowers and other small plants, and eat wild tsama melons.

Springbok drink water when they find it, but they do not need to. They can live on leaves and other plants that hold at least a little water for as long as they need to, which helps them survive in very dry places.

The springbok is a mixed feeder, comparable to Thomson's gazelle: it grazes in the rainy season and browses on foliage, forbs and tsama melons in the dry season (Britannica). The IUCN describes it as primarily a browser that also takes grass, favoring young, succulent grass before it becomes woody. In the hot, dry season it eats flowers, which hold about twice the water of the grass it eats when water is plentiful (Animal Diversity Web).

It drinks when water is available but can subsist indefinitely on browse with a water content of at least 10 percent, so it does not depend on water holes, a great advantage in a drought-prone climate.

Springbok jump high with stiff legs.

This is called pronking. They do it when they are excited or scared.

When a springbok is excited or frightened, it may start pronking: a series of high, stiff-legged bounces with its back bent, its head low and its hooves bunched together. The leaps can be up to 3.5 meters high, and the white crest on its back may open.

In the mating season, males guard territories. They grunt loudly, attack bushes with their horns and leave piles of dung. Outside the mating season, males and females form mixed herds that gather at water holes and fresh green plants after thunderstorms.

Pronking is a series of stiff-legged vertical leaps, up to 3.5 meters high, made with the head down, hooves bunched and back arched (Animal Diversity Web); the full display combines bowed back and lowered neck with the spinal crest and rump patch merged into one big white patch (Britannica). The leaps are said to distract predators such as lions and cheetahs.

Rutting males defend territories of 25 to 70 hectares with loud grunts, horning vegetation and ritualized middens of urine and dung. Outside the rut, mixed herds gather at water holes and at flushes of growth after local thunderstorms. Springbok once made huge migrations, called treks; these no longer happen, but seasonal concentrations still occur in parts of the Kalahari (IUCN).

There are lots and lots of springbok.

Many live in big parks. Many more live on farms.

The springbok is listed as Least Concern, and its numbers are growing. Experts estimated about 2 to 2.5 million springbok in southern Africa, and about 730,000 in Namibia alone.

Long ago, enormous herds traveled across the plains. Those great journeys no longer happen. Today springbok live in national parks such as Etosha in Namibia and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, and many more live on private game farms, where they are valued for their meat.

The IUCN lists Antidorcas marsupialis as Least Concern (IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group; assessed 14 June 2016, published 2016), increasing, with no major threats to its long-term survival. Skinner (2013) estimated 2 to 2.5 million animals in southern Africa, including about 730,000 in Namibia, and East (1999) estimated that about 60 percent lived on private land and 12 percent in protected areas.

Springbok are well represented in protected areas, including Etosha and Namib-Naukluft in Namibia, Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pan in Botswana, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park shared by Botswana and South Africa, and Karoo National Park; the status of the herd in Angola's Iona National Park, estimated at 2,500 in 1975, is unknown. Springbok are hunted and traded for meat, skins and horns, and are among the most valued species in southern Africa's game-ranching industry.