The ongoing global decline in vulture populations raises major conservation concerns, but little is known about the factors that mediate scavenger habitat use, in particular the importance of abundance of live prey versus prey mortality. We test this using data from the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in East Africa. The two hypotheses that prey abundance or prey mortality are the main drivers of vult...

Mass migration—the periodic, synchronized movement of large numbers of animals from one place to another— is an important part of the life cycle of many species. Such migrations are variously a means of avoiding climatic stress, escaping food and water scarcity, and satiating predators (thereby reducing individuals’ risk of being eaten). They are among the most spectacular of natural phenomena,...

This study is the first to partially quantify the potential economic benefits that a vaccine, effective at protecting cattle against malignant catarrhal fever (MCF), could accrue to pastoralists living in East Africa. The benefits would result from the removal of household resource and management costs that are traditionally incurred avoiding the disease. MCF, a fatal disease of cattle caused b...

Despite the importance of the western white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus mearnsi) to the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, surprisingly little is known about the reproductive physiology of this keystone species. A longitudinal, non-invasive endocrine study was conducted on female wildebeest captured from the Serengeti-Mara migration and maintained for approximately 16 months in large fence...

Under experimental conditions an African face fly (Musca xanthomelas) preferred to feed on cattle dung when provided with a choice of 3 different meals namely sucrose, cattle dung and blood. Flies starved overnight fed well on the eyes of cattle and rabbits, but were reluctant to feed again within 2 h after being allowed to feed on cell culture medium or on the eyes of wildebeest, and when they...

Comparative osteomorphology and sta ti st ical analysis cf postcranial limb bone measurements cf modern African wildebeest (Collnochaetes), eland (Taura/ragus) and African buffala (Sy" cer"s) have heen applied to reassess the systematic affiliations between these bovids and related extinct Pleistocene forms. The fossil sam pies come from the sites of Elandsfontein (Cape Province) .nd Flarisb.d ...

Behavioural thermoregulation is an animal's primary defence against changes in the thermal environment. We aimed to validate a remote technique to quantify the thermal environment behaviourally selected by free-ranging ungulates. First, we demonstrated that the temperature of miniature, 30 mm diameter, black globes (miniglobes) could be converted to standard, 150 mm diameter, black globe temper...

Bovine tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium bovis, is a pathogen of growing concern in free-ranging wildlife in Africa, but little is known about the disease in Tanzanian wildlife. Here, we report the infection status of Mycobacterium bovis in a range of wildlife species sampled from protected areas in northern Tanzania. M. bovis was isolated from 11.1% (2/18) migratory wildebeest (Connochaete...