Giant sable antelope
| Giant sable antelope | |
|---|---|
| Stuffed specimens at the American Natural History Museum, New York City | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Bovidae |
| Subfamily: | Hippotraginae |
| Genus: | Hippotragus |
| Species: | H. niger |
| Subspecies: | H. n. variani |
| Trinomial name | |
| Hippotragus niger variani Thomas, 1916 | |
| Geographic range | |
The giant sable antelope or royal sable antelope (Hippotragus niger variani), also known in Portuguese as the palanca-negra-gigante, is a large, rare subspecies of the sable antelope native and endemic to the region between the Cuango and Luando Rivers in Angola.
There was a great degree of uncertainty regarding the number of animals that survived during the Angolan Civil War. In January 2004, a group from the Centro de Estudos e Investigação Científica of the Catholic University of Angola, led by Dr. Pedro Vaz Pinto, was able to obtain photographic evidence of one of the remaining herds from a series of trap cameras installed in the Cangandala National Park, south of Malanje.
The giant sable antelope is the national symbol of Angola, and is held in a great regard by its people. This was perhaps one of the reasons the animals survived the long civil war. In African mythology, just like other antelopes, they symbolize vivacity, velocity, beauty and visual sharpness.
The giant sable antelope is evaluated as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. As of 2021 they reportedly only have a population of 300, 100 of which are living in Cangandala National Park.