Tuesday, 20 January 2009



The Question is;

How did the Water Buck get thye White Ring round his rear end?????

Answer tomorrow

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1 comment:

Pat Reynolds said...

I think it sat on a freshly painted toilet seat but ....

The white ring
The reason for the white circle on the rump of the waterbuck has been the subject of many theories. It has been theorized that the white circle is to allow the young, or the rest of the herd, to follow when they are on the move or running from danger.

Another theory for the white ring is that the waterbuck has a gland that secretes a musky scent into the skin when the animal is threatened, rendering the meat distasteful. If an individual survives an attack from a predator it will have the scent on the skin for a length of time. This will attract flies to the scent thereby causing major irritation to the animal. on the rump is that the ring gives the flies a target area to aim at. This is also the only area that the waterbuck can access to chase the flies off – by using the tail. The theory goes that the ring provides an aiming point for the flies and they all land in the area of the ring thereby allowing the waterbuck to swat them away.

New theory of the ring
A new theory is that, as lions chase from behind they will know that they are chasing a waterbuck when they see the ring on the rump and if they have had a bad experience with feeding on waterbuck in the past and they will give up the chase as soon as they see the white ring on the rump. This theory does not hold water though as it known to be untrue that lions do not hunt waterbuck as they find them distasteful.

The theory of the ring is given greater complication when looking at the defassa waterbuck of Zambia and central Africa. In this subspecies the whole rump is white. In areas where the range overlaps the two will interbreed with the offspring showing varying rump markings.

21 January 2009 at 12:57

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