Post by Carlos on Mar 5, 2006 20:05:52 GMT
Second instalment on Bubal Hartebeest in Cabrera (1932), p. 336-338:
Range. Central part of East Morocco, form the foothills of the Grand Atlas, in the region between the upper Mouluya, the sources of the Guir and the small rivers that give origin to the Oued Ziz. From here it ranges up to south of Oran province, where it lives, according to Lavauden, between GĂ©ryville and the Chott of Tigri. Up to recent times, this species has had a much wider geographical range; today is extremely rare and it is on the very brink of extinction.
Alcelaphus buselaphus is the «bubal» of the classic authors, and it is also the animal mentioned by Mármol (1573) by the name of «guahex», a word where it is easily recognisable a simple phonetic transcription of the second part of its Arabic name. Talking about «the animals that grow in Africa different from those of Europe», this is what that chronicler says [in old spanish]: «El Guahex (que los Christianos llaman en Affrica, Vaca braua) es vn animal menor que vn pequeño buey, de color castaño escuro, y tiene los cuernos muy negros y agudos, crianse mucha quantidad destos animales en Berueria, y andan en mandas de ciento y doszientas juntas, especialmente en las prouincias de Duquela y Temezena, y en los desiertos de Numidia, y en otras partes; corren como venados, la carne es muy Buena, y los cueros aprouechan para curtir, y hazer calçado dellos [The Guahex (that the Christians call in Africa Wild Cow) is an animal smaller than a little ox, chestnut coloured and with very sharp black horns, there is a great amount of these animals in Berberia and go around in herds of one hundred or two hundred, specially in the provinces of Duquela and Temezen, and in the deserts of Numidia, as well as in other parts: they run like bucks, the meat is very good and the hide is used to tan and made shoes of it]». It was most likely this paragraph what suggested to Pierre Vander Aa, almost a century later, the curious figure shown in the Plate XXX of the volume of his Galerie agréable du Monde devoted to Africa, under the epigraph of «Bos sylvestris seu guahox», a figure that is nothing but an hollandaise calf which the artist tried to make of fierce appearance by drawing it bristled and with erect horns.
The information given by Mármol prove that in the mid XVIth century the bubal roamed from the Atlantic coast, around the mouth of the river Um-er-RbĂa, spreading through the centre of Morocco (may be following the catchments of that river and the Mouluya) and across the «hauts plateaux» up to the Numidia, that’s to say eastern Algeria and Tunisia, where an specimen was shot as recently as 1902. The inner Tripoli seems to have been the eastern boundary of its range by then, but in prehistoric times it would spread over the Algerian «Tell», as well, where fossil remains of this species have been found. If Blaine’s Alcelaphus bubastis, based on skulls found on Egyptian hypogeii, was identical to buselaphus following Ruxton and Schwarz, it would have reached the Nile Valley; but it should be remembered that those authors tend to reduce exaggeratedly the number of species of the genus Alcelaphus, referring most of the described forms to buselaphus, as local races or even as hybridization cases among them. In my opinion, I think most likely that A. major Blyth from Senegal to be a buselaphus subspecies, and the same for the extinct A. bubastis; but I hardly admit an absolute identity between the later and the form of the Africa Minor, because the only antelopes that are widespread and apparently without variation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea are those of desert habits, and the bubals are not proper desert animals; they inhabit both plains or hilly landscapes, but always with some vegetation and water available to drink1. In relation to the occurrence of the bubal in Syria, supposed by some authors, there is no argument to support it and was denied, time ago, by Lydekker (1907)2.
1: Talking about the bubal occurrence in Tripoli, about thirty years ago, Sir Harry Johnston (Prc. Zool. Soc. London, 1898, p. 352) said that «it affects plateaux with a fair amount of vegetation, rather than de sandy desert».
2: [Carlos: Alcelaphine bones have been found recently in a couple of archeological sites in Syria although it is not clear to which species they belong]
Range. Central part of East Morocco, form the foothills of the Grand Atlas, in the region between the upper Mouluya, the sources of the Guir and the small rivers that give origin to the Oued Ziz. From here it ranges up to south of Oran province, where it lives, according to Lavauden, between GĂ©ryville and the Chott of Tigri. Up to recent times, this species has had a much wider geographical range; today is extremely rare and it is on the very brink of extinction.
Alcelaphus buselaphus is the «bubal» of the classic authors, and it is also the animal mentioned by Mármol (1573) by the name of «guahex», a word where it is easily recognisable a simple phonetic transcription of the second part of its Arabic name. Talking about «the animals that grow in Africa different from those of Europe», this is what that chronicler says [in old spanish]: «El Guahex (que los Christianos llaman en Affrica, Vaca braua) es vn animal menor que vn pequeño buey, de color castaño escuro, y tiene los cuernos muy negros y agudos, crianse mucha quantidad destos animales en Berueria, y andan en mandas de ciento y doszientas juntas, especialmente en las prouincias de Duquela y Temezena, y en los desiertos de Numidia, y en otras partes; corren como venados, la carne es muy Buena, y los cueros aprouechan para curtir, y hazer calçado dellos [The Guahex (that the Christians call in Africa Wild Cow) is an animal smaller than a little ox, chestnut coloured and with very sharp black horns, there is a great amount of these animals in Berberia and go around in herds of one hundred or two hundred, specially in the provinces of Duquela and Temezen, and in the deserts of Numidia, as well as in other parts: they run like bucks, the meat is very good and the hide is used to tan and made shoes of it]». It was most likely this paragraph what suggested to Pierre Vander Aa, almost a century later, the curious figure shown in the Plate XXX of the volume of his Galerie agréable du Monde devoted to Africa, under the epigraph of «Bos sylvestris seu guahox», a figure that is nothing but an hollandaise calf which the artist tried to make of fierce appearance by drawing it bristled and with erect horns.
The information given by Mármol prove that in the mid XVIth century the bubal roamed from the Atlantic coast, around the mouth of the river Um-er-RbĂa, spreading through the centre of Morocco (may be following the catchments of that river and the Mouluya) and across the «hauts plateaux» up to the Numidia, that’s to say eastern Algeria and Tunisia, where an specimen was shot as recently as 1902. The inner Tripoli seems to have been the eastern boundary of its range by then, but in prehistoric times it would spread over the Algerian «Tell», as well, where fossil remains of this species have been found. If Blaine’s Alcelaphus bubastis, based on skulls found on Egyptian hypogeii, was identical to buselaphus following Ruxton and Schwarz, it would have reached the Nile Valley; but it should be remembered that those authors tend to reduce exaggeratedly the number of species of the genus Alcelaphus, referring most of the described forms to buselaphus, as local races or even as hybridization cases among them. In my opinion, I think most likely that A. major Blyth from Senegal to be a buselaphus subspecies, and the same for the extinct A. bubastis; but I hardly admit an absolute identity between the later and the form of the Africa Minor, because the only antelopes that are widespread and apparently without variation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea are those of desert habits, and the bubals are not proper desert animals; they inhabit both plains or hilly landscapes, but always with some vegetation and water available to drink1. In relation to the occurrence of the bubal in Syria, supposed by some authors, there is no argument to support it and was denied, time ago, by Lydekker (1907)2.
1: Talking about the bubal occurrence in Tripoli, about thirty years ago, Sir Harry Johnston (Prc. Zool. Soc. London, 1898, p. 352) said that «it affects plateaux with a fair amount of vegetation, rather than de sandy desert».
2: [Carlos: Alcelaphine bones have been found recently in a couple of archeological sites in Syria although it is not clear to which species they belong]
