Skull without supraorbital pits or lachrymal vacuities, but with shallow lachrymal pits. Upper molar teeth tall and very narrow.
Horns present in both sexes, those of the female merely rather more slender than those of the male; always of medium length, that is, approximately, of the length of the head.
Range of Subfamily. Whole of Africa, including the Arabian Subregion.
The Subfamily Bubalidinæ is readily divisible into three genera, as follows:—
- 1. Bubalis, the true Hartebeests, with abnormally long faces and doubly-curved horns;
- 2. Damaliscus, the Bonteboks and their allies, with normal faces and simply-curved horns; and
- 3. Connochætes, the Gnus: remarkable animals with tufted faces, maned necks, expanded muzzles, and doubly-curved horns.
Genus I. BUBALIS.
| Type. | |
| Bubalis, Licht. Mag. nat. Freund. Berl. vi. p. 154 (1814) | B. buselaphus. |
| Alcelaphus, Blainv. Bull. Soc. Philom. 1816, p. 75 | B. buselaphus. |
| Damalis (gen.) and Acronotus (subgen.), H. Sm. Griff. Cuv. An. K. iv. pp. 343 & 345 (1827) | B. buselaphus. |
| Bubalus, Og. P. Z. S. 1836, p. 139 | B. buselaphus. |
Size large and general form clumsy, with the withers considerably higher than the rump; head long and narrow; muzzle moist, naked, and rather broad; nostrils close together, lined with stiff hairs; neck not maned; suborbital glands small, tufted in some species, but not in others; hoofs small; tail reaching below the hocks, moderately haired, generally with a compressed crest along the dorsal surface of its terminal half; mammæ two.
Colour uniform brown or rufous, with or without black patches on the head, shoulders, hips, and feet.
Skull elongated; the frontal bones produced upwards and backwards into a long bony support for the horns, the occiput being entirely hidden in the upper view of the skull; parietals small, compressed behind the frontal horn-pedicle, facing nearly horizontally backwards. Small interorbital perforations present; lachrymal pits present but shallow. Molars very tall and narrow, and without supplementary lobes in the upper jaw.