Hippotragus leucophaeus

  • Common name: Bluebuck
  • Classification: Mammalia → Artiodactyla → Bovidae → Hippotragus
  • Extinction date: Late 18th century (around 1799)


From slaughter to silence, bones reveal the violence of hunting. The bluebuck, once roaming South Africa, now survives only as a relic. What we kill today may endure only as a museum’s shadow tomorrow.


 Scientific and Historical Significance
  • The Bluebuck is recognized as the first large African mammal to be driven to extinction by human activity.
  • Extremely rare in museum collections — only about four complete mounted specimens survive today (Paris, Vienna, Leiden, and Stockholm).
  • Serves as a case study in extinction research and conservation biology, highlighting the impact of human activities on wildlife.






Its high value as game accelerated extinction.
Overhunting rapidly reduced bluebuck populations.
A restricted range made the species vulnerable to habitat change.
Human activity was the primary driver of bluebuck extinction.
Agricultural expansion caused loss of grassland habitat.

Grasslands and savannas of the Cape region, South Africai



Endemic to the southwestern Cape of South Africa, the bluebuck inhabited open grasslands where seasonal rains sustained limited forage. Its small population and restricted range made it especially vulnerable to disturbance.
With European settlement in the 17th and 18th centuries, agriculture expanded across the Cape, fragmenting grasslands and reducing available habitat. At the same time, hunting pressure increased, as colonists pursued the bluebuck for sport and meat.
By the early 1800s, these combined pressures drove the species to extinction. The bluebuck became the first large African mammal recorded as lost to human activity, leaving only mounted specimens in museums as evidence of its existence.

      























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