#lowland bongo

Congo sitatunga Tragelaphus spekii gratus, front

Lowland bongo Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus, back

Bovine Country, Abbott Vanderwagen, 2024

Oil-on-canvas painting

Welcome to Bovine Country, a sanctuary where different bovines roam free and chew their cuds! This oil-on-canvas painting has a spectacular grassland and farm scenery. This farmhouse has a bovine skull on the top center and a silo on the left side. This farm, which is secured by a big white barrier, isn't like most of your "average, everyday" farms, this farm has different species of bovines! And we all know that a group of bovines is called a herd, a father is called a bull, a mother is called a cow, and a offspring is called a calf.

Here is a list of bovines that appear on the painting:

Lowland Anoa (Bubalus depressicornis) — Fact: Lowland anoas are impressive swimmers. They have been spotted swimming long distances to offshore islands

Banteng (also known as the Tembadau) (Bos javanicus) — Fact: The banteng shows extensive sexual dimorphism; adult bulls are generally dark brown to black, larger and more sturdily built than adult cows, which are thinner and usually pale brown or chestnut red.

Plains Bison (Bison bison bison) — Fact: The American bison is the largest land mammal in North America.

Western or Lowland Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus) — Fact: Bongos are the largest forest antelope.

Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer caffer) — Fact: The horns of the cape buffalo are an excellent indication of age and gender. The females and young males do not have the hard shielding that protects the base of the skull in large adult males.

Cattle (Bos taurus) — Fact: They eat hay and grass, which are really hard to digest, so they chew them TWICE! The ruminant technique is called “cud chewing”. Example: A cow chews up the grass and swallows it. The food goes into her stomach where it starts to digest... but then, she then coughs it back up and chews it again before swallowing it for the last time.

Common Eland (also known as the Southern Eland or Eland Antelope) (Taurotragus oryx) — Fact: The eland is the largest African bovid, but the slowest antelope. It can only run at 25 miles per hour, but it can jump 10 feet from a standing start.

Gaur (Bos gaurus) — Fact: It is the largest species among the wild cattle and the bovids.

Gayal (also known as the Drung Ox or the Mithun) (Bos frontalis) — Fact: Gayal are not milked or put to work but given supplementary care while grazing in the woods, until they are ritually slaughtered or killed for local consumption.

Greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) — Fact: They are capable of reaching 690 lbs and of having horns as long as 6 feet.

Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) — Fact: The nilgai is the biggest of the Asian antelopes.

Lowland Nyala (Tragelaphus angasii) — Fact: They follow baboons, who discard the fruit and leaves that the nyala eats.

Saola (also called the Spindlehorn, the Asian Unicorn, or infrequently, the Vu Quang Bovid) (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) — Fact: Saolas have only been known to science since 1992!

Sitatunga (also known as the Marshbuck) (Tragelaphus spekii) — Fact: Sitatunga are swamp-dwelling antelopes and excellent swimmers. Their elongated, wide-splayed hooves help them walk on soft terrain such as swamps and marshes.

Yak (also known as the Tartary Ox, the Grunting Ox, the Hairy Cattle,  and the Domestic Yak) (Bos grunniens) — Fact: They can withstand frigid temperatures that can reach as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Add this painting to your collection, because it will make you say "Holy Cow!"

Finished on November 13, 2024

Excerpt:

It’s often surprising how little we know about the species that humans share our planet with, and the rainforests of Central Africa are a particular biodiversity blank spot. But as the BBC reports, the first large scale camera-trap survey of the Semuliki National Park in Uganda recently cast a little light on the lowland rainforest it encompases. Among the discoveries, the traps snapped the Central East African country’s first recorded sighting of the rare lowland or western bongo, the world’s largest forest antelope.

It’s surprising that the bongo subspecies, which can weight up to 800 pounds, could go so long without a sighting in Uganda. Currently, about 30,000 of the animals, listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List of endangered species, live in the forests of West and Central Africa. “We were amazed that such a large, striking animal could go undetected for so long, but bongos are a notoriously shy and elusive species,” Stuart Nixon of Chester Zoo’s Africa Field Program, which partnered with Uganda Wildlife Authority on the survey of the 85-square-mile park, tells the BBC.

Aries: Lowland Bongo

Taurus: Giant Eland

Gemini: Blesbok

Cancer: Four-Horned Antelope

Leo: Nyala

Virgo: Sitatunga

Libra: Oribi

Scorpio: Sable Antelope

Sagittarius: Gemsbok

Capricorn: Lesser Kudu

Aquarius: Mountain Nyala

Pisces: Kirk’s Dik-Dik

Lowland bongo Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus

With yellow-billed oxpecker Buphagus africanus and red-billed oxpecker Buphagus erthrorhynchus

Lowland bongo Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus

With red-billed oxpecker Buphagus erythrorhynchus

Lowland bongo Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus