Blackbuck
The blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra) is a slender antelope native to the Indian subcontinent, where it roams open grasslands and semi-arid plains. Adult males are easy to recognize: their upper body shifts from tan in youth to deep brown or nearly black at maturity, contrasting sharply with white underparts, inner legs, and a white ring around each eye. Their long, ringed horns twist in three to five tight spirals and grow 35 to 75 cm long. Females and young remain a pale fawn and are almost always hornless. Blackbucks are strict grazers under normal conditions, favoring short grasses, but they supplement their diet with leaves, flowers, and pods when vegetation is scarce. They are among the fastest antelopes in the world, reaching about 80 km/h in short bursts. Social groups tend to be single sex outside the breeding season. The species is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN; older estimates put the population at around 50,000, and introduced herds also live free in Texas and Argentina.
Is the blackbuck a deer or an antelope?
The blackbuck is an antelope, not a deer, even though it is often searched for as the black buck deer. The confusion comes partly from India, where it is called kala hiran, black deer, in Hindi, and krishna mriga in Sanskrit. Deer belong to a different family and grow antlers of solid bone that fall off every year, while the blackbuck has true horns, a core of bone covered in keratin, that it keeps for life. It belongs to the cattle family, the Bovidae, and is the only living species in the genus Antilope, which gave all antelopes their name. Its scientific name, Antilope cervicapra, mixes the Latin words for deer and goat, a sign that early naturalists were not sure what to call it either. In English the name comes from the adult male, the buck, whose back turns almost black. In Spanish it is known as antílope negro, antílope indio or antílope cervicapra.
Blackbuck horns, size and coloring
The blackbuck is a small, slender antelope. Adults stand 74 to 84 centimeters at the shoulder; males weigh 20 to 57 kilograms and females 20 to 33. Only males usually carry horns, long and ringed, that twist in three to five tight spirals and grow 35 to 75 centimeters long, forming a V when seen from the front. Females are mostly hornless, though a few grow short horns. The coloring changes with age and sex. Females and young are yellowish fawn above and white below. Young males look the same, but as they mature their back, sides and neck darken to deep brown and, in dominant males, almost black, making a sharp contrast with the white belly, the white inner legs and the white rings around the eyes. That dark coat signals rank, so the blackest bucks are usually the ones holding territories.
Where is the blackbuck found?
The blackbuck is native to India and Nepal. It once roamed most of the plains of the Indian subcontinent, but the IUCN now considers it extinct in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In India it lives mainly in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha, often on farmland and open scrub outside protected areas. Some of the best known herds are in Velavadar Blackbuck National Park in Gujarat, Tal Chhapar in Rajasthan and Point Calimere on the coast of Tamil Nadu. In Nepal a single small population survives in the Blackbuck Conservation Area at Khairapur, in Bardiya district. It favors short grass plains, dry scrub and light woodland near water, and avoids dense forest and tall grass, where it cannot see predators coming. Outside Asia, introduced herds live free in Texas, mostly on the Edwards Plateau, and in the pampas of Argentina, where they arrived in 1906.
How fast is the blackbuck?
The blackbuck is one of the fastest antelopes on Earth, able to run at up to about 80 km/h in short bursts and to keep a fast, bounding gait over long distances. When alarmed, it often makes a series of high leaps, a behavior called stotting or pronking, before breaking into a full run, and the rest of the herd follows. Speed was its main defense against the Asiatic cheetah, which hunted blackbuck across the Indian plains until it was wiped out in India in the twentieth century; Mughal emperors even kept trained cheetahs to course them. Large eyes set on the sides of the head give it a wide field of view, so it can spot danger early across open ground. Its digestive system lets it get enough nutrition from dry, poor quality grass in the lean season, and it can go for some time without drinking when green food is available.
Behavior and social life
Blackbucks are highly social animals that typically form separate male and female groups outside the breeding season. Female herds with young can number in the dozens, while bachelor male groups tend to be smaller. Dominant males establish and defend territories, marking boundaries with preorbital gland secretions deposited on grass stems and with dung middens. During the rut, territorial males perform elaborate displays, including strutting walks and chases, to attract females and warn rivals. Breeding can occur at almost any time of year in India, though peaks are often observed in spring and autumn. Females usually give birth to a single calf after a gestation of around six months. Newborns are kept hidden in vegetation for the first few days before joining the herd, a behavior that reduces the risk of predation.
The blackbuck in Indian culture
Few wild animals are as tied to Indian culture as the blackbuck. In Hindu tradition it appears as the mount of the wind god Vayu and is linked to the moon god Chandra, and its skin was once used by ascetics for meditation. It is the state animal of Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. Its strongest protectors are the Bishnois of Rajasthan, a community whose religious rules forbid killing animals and cutting green trees. Around Bishnoi villages, blackbuck graze calmly in the fields, and villagers have chased poachers and reported hunting cases for generations. That devotion became national news after the 1998 shooting of blackbuck near Jodhpur during a film shoot, a case that Bishnoi villagers pushed through the courts for two decades. In India the species is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, the highest level, the same as the tiger.
Is the blackbuck endangered?
No. The IUCN lists the blackbuck as Least Concern in its 2017 assessment, but its history has been rough. In the nineteenth century there may have been millions on the plains of India; hunting, the spread of farming and the loss of grassland cut them to a few tens of thousands by the 1960s and 1970s, and the species vanished from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Legal protection since 1972, reserves such as Velavadar and the care of communities like the Bishnois brought it back, and older estimates put the total at around 50,000. There is no recent national count, and local surveys show both strong herds and declines: at Point Calimere numbers fell from more than 2,300 in the 1990s to about 700. Today's threats are feral and village dogs, which kill many fawns, loss of grassland to farms and roads, conflicts with farmers over crops, and poaching. Nepal's only population, at Khairapur, fell from 242 to 210 in the latest count, with leopards behind most of the deaths.
Where it is found
The Blackbuck can be found in places such as:
