Walter's duiker


Walter's duiker is a species of duiker found in Togo, Benin and Nigeria. It was described in 2010. Its name commemorates Professor Walter Verheyen, who was the first to obtain a specimen of this species of duiker from Togo in 1968.

Description

It measures under tall at the shoulder, and weighs between. It was described in 2010 following comparison of specimens in museum collections with those from bushmeat markets. It is a small antelope and is characterised by a slightly raised back, short legs, a small head and short, rounded ears. It has a long tail, pedal glands and a distinctive stripe above the eye. It is intermediate in size between the larger Maxwell's duiker and the smaller blue duiker, but is clearly different in morphology, cranial structure and DNA analysis.

Distribution and habitat

Walter's duiker was first recognised as a new species in 2010 when specimens of this duiker were found on sale at a bushmeat market. The duikers have not been observed by researchers in the wild, but are believed to come from the Dahomey Gap, an area of savannah which is a portion of the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic with a relatively dry climate, that extends all the way to the coast in Benin, Togo and Ghana, separating the rainforest zones on either side.

Status

This species is known from only forty-one specimens found in the last few decades and it has not been viewed in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers the species too poorly known for it to be able to evaluate this animal's conservation status, so they have assessed it as being of "data deficient".