Snapshot Serengeti Talk

how do we id "young" Tommies? are mature females the same size as males? are the short horns and small stature = to "young"?

  • tillydad by tillydad moderator

    In reply to your question, @iamfern here are the measurements for the Thomson's gazelle :

    Height at shoulder : 62 cm average ( 58 to 70 cm range ) with the males being slightly taller than the females on average
    Weight : 17 - 29 kgs for the male and 13 - 23.5 kgs for the female
    Horns : 25 - 43 cms for the male and 8 - 15 cms for the female

    The young will be anything that is noticeably smaller or has not yet developed full horns, although the female horns tend to be misshapen or twisted, or even missing altogether . It is a subjective judgement call as to when an animal is still "young" when a full assessment is not possible . If, for instance, we only see a lone animal with nothing to directly compare it to and we cannot fully see the horns then make a best guess based on the knowledge that you have acquired classifying all the images containing Thomson's .

    I hope that this helps. let me know if you need more info about this, or indeed any other, species . 😃

    Posted