single twist. At 10 months old, young males sprout horns that are particularly twisted and at maturity form the first loop of a spiral. The Cape bushbuck has on average less striping and more uniform colouration than populations in West Africa. Cape bushbuck occur from the Cape in South Africa to Angola and Zambia and up the eastern part of Africa to Ethiopia and Somalia, according to one interpretation. Other interpretations restrict the taxon to Southern Africa sensu stricto or consider them sensu lato to occur in the above range except eastern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The first Latin name that can be attributed to the Cape bushbuck was Antilope sylvatica after Sparrman (1780), described from the Cape Colony. Ecology Bushbuck browse on trees, shrubs, and forbs; they rarely if ever eat grasses. Studies of free-ranging bushbuck in various parts of southeastern Africa using DNA metabarcoding show that bushbuck frequently forage on acacias (Senegalia, Vachellia) and other legumes, along with mallows (Grewia, Hibiscus), bushwillows (Combretum), buckthorns (Berchemia, Ziziphus) and various other plants. Bushbuck are active throughout the day, but tend to be nocturnal near human habitations. Bushbuck are solitary animals, but are not aggressively antisocial, and individuals sometimes forage in close proximity. Bushbuck live within a "home" area, which is usually around 50,000 m2 on the savannah and much larger in the forest, that they will not normally leave. These areas usually overlap other bushbuck home areas. Some game farmers in southern Africa discovered that the bushbuck may compete with the closely related, larger nyala when they tried to introduce the two species to the same area. However, the two species are often found in close proximity in natural communities (e.g., in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique). References External links Cape bushbuck Mammals of Southern Africa Cape bushbuck