Wildebeest "The Great Space Coaster" (newscaster Gary Gnu), and "The Lion King" (the wildebeest stampede that resulted in Mufasa's death). Michael Flanders wrote a humorous song called "The Gnu", which was very popular when he performed it, with Donald Swann, in a revue called "At the Drop of a Hat", which opened in London on 31 December 1956. The wildebeest is the mascot of the GNU Project and GNU operating system. In the "Llama Llama" picture-book series by Anna Dewdney, an anthropomorphized wildebeest named Nelly Gnu is the main character, Llama Llama's best friend, and is also featured in a title
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