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Tsessebe

Visitors to South Africa are blown away by the spellbinding scenery they find themselves ensconced in; with stretches of beautiful nature and an endless array of animals and plant life to view, travelers to this beautiful country can experience a true African adventure filled with excitement and exhilaration. One of South Africa’s main tourist destinations is the iconic Kruger National Park in the Mpumalanga province. Boasting a scintillating assortment of animals, visitors to this part of the world can look forward to a fun-filled as well as educational expedition.

The Tsessebe is not one of the main animals most people are familiar with, but this member of the antelope family is a special part of the Kruger’s animal kingdom and belongs to the same group as the Hartebees and Wildebeest species. Fairly gregarious and social, the Tsessebe features a reddish brown upper body, a dark face with purple blotches, and when viewed from the front, their horns form an almost half-moon shaped silhouette.

Visitors to the Kruger Park are likely to find these animals as part of a small herd controlled by a dominant male and featuring 6-10 cows along with their offspring. The Tsessebe prefers to dwell in open plains and savannah areas where they can graze on various grasses; they favor leaves over stems and are attracted to areas where there have been fires so they can feed on the re-growth. As most of the Tsessebe family is conserved and preserved in the likes of the Kruger Park, visitors here can look forward to viewing them at multiple opportunities as they are active during the day. During mating season, which occurs during mid-February and runs through till March, the bulls perform a very elaborate ritual in an effort to woo the females into mating with them. This is quite a dramatic experience for those who are privileged enough to witness it.