Three examples of the animal species filmed at Kilimanjaro (from left): an Abbott ducker, a diadem monkey and a black serval cat. (Image: Lehrstuhl für Zoologie III / Universität Würzburg)
A Würzburg research group has documented numerous large mammals on Kilimanjaro with video traps. The protected areas of the mountain are enormously important for the biodiversity of this animal group. Tanzania is home to a very shy antelope species that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. According to the Red List, it can be classified as endangered. Only in the year 2003 researchers succeeded in taking a photo of one of these antelopes for the first time. How often it occurs at Kilimanjaro has not been documented so far. Its name: Abbott ducker ( Cephalophus spadix ). But now there are numerous videos in which the antelopes can be seen. The film sequences were taken by a research group of Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. The group has been researching biodiversity at Kilimanjaro for years. Current research has focused, among other things, on the question of how the biodiversity of larger mammals is influenced by climate change and human activities. Video with animals of Kilimanjaro on the JMU Youtube channel "We caught the Abbott ducker a total of 105 times with our video traps at eleven locations at altitudes between 1920 and 3849 meters," says doctoral student Friederike Gebert from the JMU Biocenter. "There's even a video of a mating attempt," says the scientist. And that's not the only special feature that has now been captured on film. Tens of thousands of video sequences evaluated
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