General and Colour Characters.—Medium-sized or large bovine Antelopes, typically, but not invariably, marked with transverse white stripes on the body, a pair of white spots on the cheeks, a white stripe running inwards and downwards from the corner of the eye to form an incomplete -shaped mark on the upper half of the nose, a large transverse white patch at the upper and another at the lower extremity of the throat, and a pair of white spots on the front of the pasterns, which are black or brown behind. The belly is never white, and often darker than the sides of the body. The typical colour, as exemplified in the females and young males, is tawny, fawn, or reddish brown; but the adult males often assume a deep brown or slaty hue, and differ strikingly from the females.
Horns generally present only in the male; arising just behind the orbit; usually spirally twisted, and always furnished at the base in front with a longitudinal ridge, which generally curves outwards from the base of the horn.
Skull without anteorbital pits, but with large or small lachrymal vacuities, and usually with large pits on the frontal bones at the apertures of the supraorbital foramina.
Muzzle large and naked.
Mammæ 4.
Range of the Subfamily. Peninsular India and Africa south of the Sahara.
The genera of this subfamily may be tabulated as follows:—