These elegant antelopes are one of the few to show a colour variation between the sexes. The females and the youngsters are light-coloured, but the male’s upper body grows gradually darker, becoming a deep brown or even black. The males also have long, ringed and spiralled horns.
When they sense danger, the whole group starts leaping high in the air and then gallops off. These antelopes are very fast and can run at 80 km/h for several kilometres!
Once abundant, blackbucks have suffered greatly from being hunted for their meat and for trophies. Their numbers are now threatened by the disappearance of their habitat for livestock and crops, and by poaching.
At La Barben, they live in a big Asian plain enclosure with the nilgai and the fallow deer.