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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Bluebuck

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Bluebuck

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This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 17, 2016 by - Dank (push to talk) 12:25, 3 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hippotragus leucophaeus at Naturhistorisches Museum Wien

The bluebuck (Hippotragus leucophaeus) was a species of South Africaan antelope that became extinct around 1800. It was congeneric with the roan antelope and sable antelope, but smaller than either. The largest mounted bluebuck specimen is 119 centimetres (47 in) tall at the withers. Its horns measure 56.5 centimetres (22.2 in) along the curve. The coat was bluish-grey, with a pale whitish belly. The bluebuck was a grazer, and may have calved where rainfall would peak. It was confined to the southwestern Cape when encountered by Europeans in the seventeenth century, but fossil evidence and rock paintings show that while its original distributionb was muich wider, its preferred grassland habitat was reduced to a 4,300-square-kilometre (1,700 sq mi) range. The first published mention of the bluebuck is from 1681, and few descriptions of the animal were written while it existed. It was hunted by European settlers, and wiped out around 1800; the first large African mammal to face extinction in historical times. Only four mounted specimens remain - in Leiden, Stockholm, Vienna and Paris museums. (Full article...)