Damaliscus korrigum
Silhouette: [unknown] · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
Damaliscus lunatus jimela is a subspecies of topi, and is usually just called a topi. It is a highly social and fast type of antelope found in the savannas, semi-deserts, and floodplains of sub-Saharan Africa. The word tope or topi is Swahili, and was first recorded in the 1880s by the German explorer Gustav Fischer to refer to the local topi population in the Lamu County region of Kenya; this population is now designated as Damaliscus lunatus topi. Contemporaneously, in English, sportsmen referred to the animal as a Senegal hartebeest, as it was considered the same species as what is now recognised as D. lunatus korrigum.
Other names recorded in East Africa by various German explorers were mhili in Kisukuma and jimäla in Kinyamwezi. The Luganda name was simäla according to Neumann, or nemira according to Lugard. By the turn of the 19th century this antelope was called a topi by most in English. Writing in 1908, Richard Lydekker complains that it would have so much simpler if all these new forms of korrigum had simply been called East African korrigum, Bahr-el-Ghazal korrigum, etc., than constantly adopting different native names for different geographic forms of essentially... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Akagera National Park | 🇷🇼 Rwanda | |
| 2 | Lake Mburo National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 3 | Masai Mara National Reserve | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 4 | Serengeti National Park | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 5 | Queen Elizabeth National Park | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 6 | Virunga National Park | 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo | |
| 7 | Ngorongoro Conservation Area | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
Likely
About 60% of wildlife watchers report a Topi sighting in Serengeti National Park on a given day, based on 375 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 9th most-seen of the 41 mammals we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 90%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and November–December
In those months about 70% of wildlife watchers report a Topi in Serengeti National Park on a given day, against about 50% in January, the lowest month.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Topi sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
4th of 7
Of the 7 parks where we can rate Topi sightings, Serengeti National Park ranks 4th at about 60%. The best odds are in Akagera National Park (Rwanda, about 80%), Lake Mburo National Park (Uganda, about 70%) and Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya, about 70%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Bovidae
The closest relatives of the Topi that you can see in Serengeti National Park (family Bovidae, Bovids) are Blue Wildebeest (about 60%), Impala (about 50%) and African Buffalo (about 50%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Topi is recorded against all the mammals logged in Serengeti National Park (375 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
