Grazing quietly on grasses and woody plants, impala are active throughout the day and night. These small-sized reddish antelope alternate between resting and grazing and sipping cool water along the African grassland. Female impala live in herds of 200, usually defended by a single adult male; younger and weaker males live in herds of thirty. Males have distinctive lyre-shaped ridged horns. Impala have an excellent sense of hearing, sight, and smell. Their most distinguishing characteristics are their ability to gracefully leap as high as thirty feet in a single bound—helpful indeed, as impala have many predators!—and the “M” shape on their backsides Impala breed all year long in Central Africa, but in East Africa they typically breed during the rainy seasons of March and November. Impala give birth to only one baby at a time. Both boys and girls are independent of their mothers by the time they’re one year old.