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Damaliscus lunatus jimela is a subspecies of topi,[3] 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.
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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 the same antelope.
In 2003 Fenton Cotterill argued the correct name for jimela topi was nyamera in English,[8] referencing that to the 1993 Kingdon field guide, which reports it as another Swahili name for topi antelopes.
New names invented in 2011 for various populations of this subspecies were Serengeti topi, Ruaha topi and Uganda topi.
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According to the 2005 definition of D. korrigum jimela, topi can be found in the following countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. The species is regionally extinct in Burundi. The 2011 definition of D. jimela restricted it to the Serengeti subpopulation. D. ugandae occurred in Uganda and the Lake Rukwa population was considered D. eurus. It is unclear what the small intervening populations were supposed to be. Data given in the same 2011 book which recognised all these species show that D. jimela, D. ugandae, D. eurus and D. topi are all morphologically indistinguishable, aside from a single characteristic used to recognise these species: the subjective hair colour of a limited number of skins.
The hair colour of the pelage may vary across the different geographic subpopulations, being darker or lighter (see photos).
This subspecies has horns with a shape that gives the effect of the space between them having a lyrate profile when seen from a certain angle, as opposed to lunate, which is seen in the sassaby subspecies found to the south: D. lunatus lunatus and D. lunatus superstes. It is in principle indistinguishable from D. lunatus topi, the topi population found to the east along the coasts. A hartebeest also has lyrate horns, but these are sharper angled.
