DUIKER

Scientific name: Cephalophus natalensis

Pylum: Chordata

Family: Bovidae

Family: Bovidae

Subfamily: Cephalophinae

 Vulnerability: Least concern

Duikers are primarily browsers rather than grazers, eating leaves, shoots, seeds, fruit, buds, and bark, and often following flocks of birds or troops of monkeys to take advantage of the fruit they drop. They supplement their diets with meat: duikers consume insects and carrion from time to time and even manage to capture rodents or small birds. Since food is the deciding factor, various locations of food sources often dictate the distribution of duikers.

While they feed on a wide range of plants, they choose to eat specific parts of the plant that are most nutritious. Therefore, to feed efficiently, they must be familiar with their territory and be thoroughly acquainted with the geography and distribution of specific plants.[16] For such reasons, duikers readjusting to novel environments created by human settlements and deforestation is not easy.