The dibatag an animal no longer held in captivity, so any photo record is a gem. I saw these 2 pics of a single animal held at the Henry Doorly zoo in the late 60's Were any more imported, have they been bred in captivity. https://www.facebook.com/OmahaZoo/photos/pcb.10153708192950851/10153708189855851/?type=3&theater
Wow-great Picture. That's the first colour photo I've ever saw of a dibatag under Human care. Naples Zoo also has kept Dibatag from 1954-57 and 1960-1962, Pertoria Zoo made an unseccusful attempt to keep the species in 1959. Diabatag never bred in human care-as far as I know. Al Wabra tried to get the species a couple of years ago.
In KSA "rumours" are one of the leading Royal Family members has a herd of them. No direct confirmation though, … that remains a real difficult one.
Remarkable...in addition to the places listed by Bib F. I think Rome may have had an odd one as well.I have a guide to Naples Zoo from the time in question that shows a Dibatag sharing hay with a Lesser Kudu,according to Crandall the fifties animal at Naples was a female and the sixties animals a male and two females.The same Naples guide casually shows Beira, Phillips Dik-dik and Spix Macaw too!From all accounts the zoo has come close to closing in recent times.
Sorry to say I didn't even know this species existed. Just ran a Google search to read a little more about them. Really cool that Henry Doorly Zoo has one. Thanks so much for sharing!
Found this lovely shot of another gem species previously kept at HD. Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium
Appreciate the tag, very interesting! Pretoria has kept some extremely odd ungulate species throughout the years, They even had a presumed Mountain Nyala female that was only identified as a lesser kudu several years after arrival!
Well this is years since your original post, but do you possibly have a source for your dibatag information in Pretoria zoo. I have found a single paper saying that Pretoria zoo wild caught 5 antelope from Somalia, but it included both gerenuk and dibatag. I am yet to find any mention on the exact number of each species and how long they were kept by the zoo. Both a full taxidermy of a gerenuk and the skull of a dibatag can be seen at the National History Museum of South Africa. Both can safely be presumed are the same animals as mentioned in the paper since almost the entire mammal collection at the museum overlaps with the collection of the zoo. The zoo has always had close ties with the museum as it played an integral role in the origin of the zoo.
So from reading the paper it appears that the dibatag at Pretoria zoo really did not fare well, as to be expected. Collection: August 1959: Several animals collected but plenty died before arrival at the zoo. (Mentions at least 2.1 collected on 16 and 19 August of which 1 was killed and 1 possibly died of disease) Arrival: 15 September 1959: 3 individuals arrived at the zoo on One individual died shortly after arrival. 1959-1960: Another died by the time the report was published in 1960. (I presume it was published very early in the year as there is no mention of the year in the paper except that it was published in 1960). I suppose the last individual must have died shortly after meaning it at least lived until 1960.
