Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 59. (Budapest 1967)

Szunyoghy, J. ; Nagy, E.: The scientific results of Hungarian zoological expeditions to Tanganyika 11. Data to the body measurements of East African big game on the basis of material collected during the third expedition

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MTJSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 59. PARS ZOOLOGICA 1967. The Scientific Results of Hungarian Zoological Expeditions to Tanganyika 11. Data to the Body Measurements of East African Big Game on the Basis of Material Collected During the Third Expedition By J. SZTJNYOGHY, Budapest, and E. NAGY, Tanzania The big game species of East Africa, and more especially of Tanganyika, are rather well known from both the hunter's and the zoologist's points of view. Known, however, by far from every respect. Being obviously aware of this fact, the more opulent bigger and smaller museums of the world vie with one another in endeavouring to acquire as big a research material as possible, of even the seemingly commonest species. It were superfluous to expound this struggle —the specialists wish to study and to know this fauna more intensely. African big game had more or less the same fate as the European: we know their trophies better than the animals which produce them. It were sufficient to refer merely to the well-known publication, ROWLAND WARD'S "Records of Big Game". The illustrious editor keeps a record, for long decades past, of antlers, horns, and tusks of capital size, together with their more important measurements, but never, or hardly at all, of those of the animals themselves. Some few random data, tossed at the end of the discussion of the diverse species and subspecies (except possibly the elephants and the large carnivores with a representation of several body measurements), are all that give a measure of information, mostly with reference to the height and weight of the animal. This, however, is far from being enough. It was decidedly a step forwards when ROWLAND WORD, in his publication "Records of Big Game, Eleventh Edition (Africa), First Addendum List, 1964", presented a table (p. 59) of the body weights of males and females of big game species hunted in East Africa. It is our sincere hope that this is only a beginning and that the rightly famous editor will recognize that the hunters themselves, and not only the zoologists, are also very much interested in the measurements of the prey besides those concerning merely its trophy. It is also a welcome fact that one can now find in a number of copies of the "East African Wildlife Journal", dedicated especially to East African big game, weight data, and occasionally also body measurement data, referring to diverse antelope species. This, too, is only a beginning, and one wonders what the next steps will be

. . . In our opinion, the official protectors of the East African big game stock, as well as the various venatical specialists, will soon discover that the reading of the corporeal measurements of the East African big game species is primarily their very own task. This work will not, and cannot, be made by anybody else in their stead. Investigations of this kind can best and most successfully be made in areas where, owing to overpopulations of the habitat, the thinning out of the animals is a concurrently prescribed official task. This work could be executed by the collective cooperation of a number of specialists, and, above everything else, sponsored by the state. Being aware therefore of the fact that the body measurements, in this concept equalling the corporeal construction, of the East African big game species are hardly known, we have decided to read a number of dimension data of the big game, avail-