Black wildebeest wildebeest can also affect human beings negatively. Wild individuals can be competitors of commercial livestock, and can transmit fatal diseases such as rinderpest, and cause epidemics among animals, particularly domestic cattle. They can also spread ticks, lungworms, tapeworms, flies, and paramphistome flukes. Black wildebeest The black wildebeest or white-tailed gnu ("Connochaetes gnou") is one of the two closely related wildebeest species. It is a member of the genus "Connochaetes" and family Bovidae. It was first described in 1780 by Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann. The black wildebeest is typically in head-and-body length, and the typical weight is . Males stand
Black wildebeest range, and are now largely limited to game farms and protected reserves in Southern Africa. In most reserves, the black wildebeest shares its habitat with the blesbok and the springbok. Where it lives alongside the blue wildebeest, the two species can hybridise, and this is regarded as a potential threat to the maintenance of the species. The black wildebeest was once very numerous and was present in Southern Africa in vast herds, but by the end of the 19th century, it had nearly been hunted to extinction and fewer than 600 animals remained. A small number of individuals was still