The Tale of the Tail of the White Tailed Gnu

The white tailed gnu created from those left over animal parts and one of the 'ugly five' according to Anele the ranger (he failed to tell us the other four..) has a prominent white tail that looks like that of a horse. It is very obvious against the dark of the rest of the body, a problem you might think when being pursued by a hungry predator as it makes such an obvious target. But what actually happens is that, when being pursued, the gnu will dart quickly in one direction while flicking its large and obvious tail in the opposite direction thereby distracting the pursuer and making them turn the wrong way.

Often when we see a herd of these animals they are all male, a 'boys club' according to Anele. In the wild a dominant male will gather around him a bunch of females and mate with them while he maintains his dominant position with that herd. Any male offspring he has will be pushed out of the herd by that male once they reach sexual maturity so as not to be a threat to his authority and his mating rights. These younger males then gather together in herds of their own for protection until the time when any of them feels ready to challenge the head of a herd and hopefully establish their own mating rights. The same behaviour can be seen in some antelopes and lions.