Black wildebeest the hybrid as compared to either of its parents. In some animals, the auditory bullae are highly deformed, and in others, the radius and ulna are fused. Black wildebeest are sexually dimorphic, with females being smaller in size and more slender than males. The head-and-body length is typically between . Males reach about at the shoulder, while females reach . Males typically weigh and females . A distinguishing feature in both sexes is the tail, which is long and similar to that of a horse. Its bright-white colour gives this animal the vernacular name of "white-tailed gnu", and also distinguishes
Wildebeest the family Bovidae and subfamily Alcelaphinae, where its closest relatives are the hartebeest ("Alcelaphus" spp.), the hirola ("Beatragus hunteri"), and species in the genus "Damaliscus", such as the topi, the tsessebe, the blesbok and the bontebok. The name "Connochaetes" was given by German zoologist Hinrich Lichtenstein in 1812. Dutch settlers first discovered wildebeest in about 1700, on their way to the interior of South Africa. Due to their resemblance to wild cattle, these people called them "wild ox" or "wildebeest". The blue wildebeest was first known to westerners in the northern part of South Africa a century later, in the