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
Wildebeest "Gorgon", while the black wildebeest belonged to the genus "Connochaetes". Today, they are united in the single genus "Connochaetes", with the black wildebeest being named ("C. gnou") and the blue wildebeest ("C. taurinus"). According to a mitochondrial DNA analysis, the black wildebeest seem to have diverged from the main lineage during the Middle Pleistocene and became a distinct species around a million years ago. A divergence rate around 2% has been calculated. The split does not seem to have been driven by competition for resources, but instead because each species adopted a different ecological niche and occupied a different trophic