On the hoof

An exciting moment today when Michelle sent a camera trap photo from South Sudan that was puzzling to identify. It was an ungulate species, possibly a juvenile, but we couldn’t figure it out despite racking our brains. South Sudan is in an interesting location, biogeographically speaking, as there are some species range crossovers between East and Central Africa. Luckily the project works with the esteemed academic DeeAnn Reeder, who I had the privilege to travel there with. As an author of mammal encyclopaedia, we think DeeAnn is well placed to crack this one.

As I was in the office practically alone I rootled around on (by now fairly abandoned) shelves for any help with identifying African antelopes. There isn’t much published on the biodiversity of South Sudan, for obvious reasons, but I did find a few random antelope publications and a tattered East Africa field guide.

They couldn’t help me, so whilst we will have to default to DeeAnn’s extensive knowledge, this excitement momentarily broke up the monotony of recent work days.