Whiskers
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by
elfinelvin
The wildebeest is certainly a marvelous creature. I have become very curious as to why evolution would have selected for the fringe under the wildebeest's neck. At first I thought it might be camouflage, but I've looked at a lot of wildebeest pictures in the last few months and I don't see that happening. Are there any ideas on this?
Posted
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by
davidbygott
moderator
An excellent question and a hard one to answer. Wildebeest are by no means camouflaged - a herd of them is an assault on every sense, you can't miss them! However, Dick Estes (a world expert on this species) hints at a possible function in "The Behavior Guide to African Mammals": "The beard...adds to the difficulty of spotting calves on the mother's off-side". I.e. calves are very attractive targets to predators, so the mother's beard helps conceal their presence.
An alternative might be that the beard helps exaggerate the apparent size of a territorial male when he postures at other males.
Any other ideas out there??
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ahorner58
Could it make it harder for a predator to grab ahold of the their neck? Maybe getting a mouth full of beard instead?
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davidbygott
moderator
I considered that one too. But if so, why wouldn't more prey animals have beards? And I've never noticed that to be a problem for predators. Hyenas go in through the belly or groin, and once lions pull a gnu down, they have no difficulty suffocating it, either with a throat clamp or a muzzle cover.
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ahorner58
It's been said wildebeest are created by God out of spare parts, may be there was a lot of fringe left over from other animals and there just wasn't any other place to put it! 😉
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elfinelvin
Maybe the wildebeest was made first and God decided he didn't like the look of the fringe so he never used it again.
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Batolito
I know in lions the color and volume of the main (not sure its spelled like this ) has a sexual selection function, could there be a same logic here??
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