They also provide important products, such as leather, to humans. Wildebeest, however, can also have a negative impact on humans. Wild individuals can be competitors of commercial livestock, and can transmit diseases and cause epidemics among animals, particularly domestic cattle. They can also spread ticks, lungworms, tapeworms, flies, and paramphistome flukes. Cultural depictions The wildebeest is depicted on the coat of arms of the Province of Natal and later KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Over the years, the South African authorities have issued several stamps displaying the animal and the South African Mint has struck a two-cent piece with a prancing black wildebeest. Movies and television shows also feature wildebeests, including Khumba (Mama V), The Wild (Kazar and his minions), All Hail King Julien (Vigman Wildebeest), Phineas and Ferb (Newton the Gnu), The Great Space Coaster (newscaster Gary Gnu), and The Lion King (the wildebeest stampede that resulted in Mufasa's death). Michael Flanders wrote a humorous song called "The Gnu", which was very popular when he performed it, with Donald Swann, in a revue called At the Drop of a Hat, which opened in London on 31 December 1956. In the 1970s, British tea brand Typhoo ran a series of television advertisements featuring an animated anthropomorphic gnu character. The wildebeest is the mascot of the GNU Project and GNU operating system. In the Llama Llama picture-book series by Anna Dewdney, an anthropomorphised wildebeest named Nelly Gnu is the main character, Llama Llama's best friend, and is also featured in a title of her own, Nelly Gnu and Daddy Too. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Discworld analogues of wildebeests, which inhabited Howonderland, were called "bewilderbeest". See also Keystone species References Alcelaphinae Mammals of Africa Extant Pleistocene first appearances Herbivorous mammals Articles containing video clips