Damaliscus korrigum
Silhouette: [unknown] · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~80% 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 40% of wildlife watchers report a Topi sighting in Virunga National Park on a given day, based on 16 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 3rd most-seen of the 11 mammals we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Topi in Virunga National Park on a given day, against about 10% in May and October, the lowest months. That is one of Virunga National Park's driest months, with about 15 mm of rain against 250 mm in May. April has too few records to rate.
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.
6th of 7
Of the 7 parks where we can rate Topi sightings, Virunga National Park ranks 6th at about 40%. 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 Virunga National Park (family Bovidae, Bovids) are Kob (about 40%), Northern Bushbuck (about 20%) and African Buffalo (about 10%), 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 Virunga National Park (16 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.
