Photos of African Antelopes by Yvonne van der Mey

Antelopes in Africa come in all colours and sizes, and there is such a big diversity. But they have something in common. Apart from being eaten by everyone in the predator world, they all have fascinating stripes or markings, mostly white. Sometimes when I'm driving through the bush, the idea pops into my head that when the world was created, there was much too much white paint, so at the end of the day the left-over paint was equally divided, with bundles of creativity, among the antelope species.

Some of the species here are very rare, because their numbers have dropped so much. You can see photo's of Eland, Tsetsebe, Sable, Roan, Liechtenstein's Hartebeest and Reedbuck on the page called "The Rare Six", a much-used term for these species. There are also very small antelopes, such as the Klipspringer, Steenbuck and Sharpe's Grysbok, which you can find on the "Small Antelopes" page.

It took me quite some time and effort to get to know all the different species well enough to be able to identify them at a glimpse. Some of them look very much alike, if you don't know them too well. The most "common" of them, the Impala, is my favourite. Many people pass them by without giving them a second glance, which is not fair to them as they are truely beautiful, and it's not very wise either. Since impalas are eaten by every predator, you can often expect a big cat to be lurking around large herds. It's good to stop for a while and to just watch them for any warning signals that they give each other. Doing so has often brought me in close contact with one of the predators.

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