A duiker   is a medium sized brown in color antelope a native to sub-Saharan Africa. Duikers are found in wooded areas. There are 22 extant species of duikers, including three other subspecies of other species, subfamily cephalophinae.

The Como name ‘duiker’ the word is derived from the African word duiker, or Dutch word which means duiker-both of them mean  ‘to dive’, this means the action of how duikers dive into vegetation for cover.

Duikers are split into two groups based on their habitats, there are bush duikers and forests, forest species inhabit the rainforests, while the common grey duiker occupies the savannas.

Duikers are shy creatures in their dense covers, they tend to live in more open areas, and for example they disappear into thickets for protection.

Duikers are   widely based on most common  studied blue ,red forest  and common grey duiker these are tropically  rainforest zones of Africa, people hunt them for their meat, fur an horns unsustainable rates.

Population trends   for all species of duikers excluding the Como duiker and smallest blue duiker, the large duiker species such as Abbott’s and Jentinks which are now considered endangered.

Duikers   weigh 3 kilograms and blue duikers to 79 kilograms yellow-backed duiker. They have own bodies to the ground, short horns, forest duikers   are built to navigate through dense rainforests into bushes when threatened.

Common grey duiker lives in more open areas like savannas, it has longer legs and vertical horns, the legs and vertical horns allow it to run faster and for longer distances, the males are confrontational and territorial, exhibit horns.

Duiker males are well-developed glands that resemble slits under their eyes or blue duikers, will always use secretions from these glands to mark their territories.

Duikers are grey duikers that are highly independent manners behave in highly independent manner besides reproduction and they prefer to act alone. These exclude the common grey duiker in which females are distinctly larger than the males.

The duiker’s body size is proportional to the amount of food intake and the size of food it eats.

As Duikers eat food  however The ‘head and neck shape ‘limit the amount of food taken, the further constraints on ingestion that  causes differences in the food sources among different species of duiker.

Interactions

The size and their reservation of nature, the duikers hide away from predators .Duikers are extreme shy, they free at the slightest sign of a threat as they dive into the bushier forest. Duiker’s social behavior involves sufficient distance between any other. Duikers are more aggressive when dealing with territories; they always mark their territory and fight other duikers that enter their territories.

Duikers travel alone in their groups they can chose to interact once or thrice a year with other duikers only for the purpose of mating. Although duikers at times form temporary groups to gather fruits fallen from trees. Duikers interact and fight one another; it becomes hard to determine factors contributing the most to their endangerment.

Duikers prefer to live in groups or as alone in order to avoid competition that comes from living in large pairs.

Duikers also evolve to become highly selective feeders only on specific parts of plants.

DIET

Duikers are grazers, that eat seeds, fruits, leaves, shoots, buds, barks and leaves they often take advantage of birds and monkeys fruits that drop from the trees.

The blue duikers tend to eat various seeds, while larger ones tend to feast on larger fruits. Blue duikers are small in size more efficient in high quality items, digesting small food, they receive most of the water from the food they eat, although they do not rely on drinking water and they can easily be found in waterless localities.

Duikers can be either nocturnal or diurnal since majority of food I there during the day. This exists between sleep pattern and body size, there are medium sized duikers that increase their eating for food during day time, and larger duikers are active at night. It’s the largest species which is active both night and day.

Distribution and abundance

Duikers both male and female are found in different areas  dwelling in the tropical rainforests of west Africa  and central.

 Ecology

Conservation of duikers is   direct and critical relations with the ecology. Duikers co-exist because of their different sleep patterns which allow them to eat fruits during the day.

Conservation

 The duiker’s extinction is ‘habitat losses and overexploitation. Constant urbanization and the process of shifting agriculture ‘this is gradually taking over many duikers habitats at the same time; overexploitation is an amazing permitting the overgrowth of interacting species, resulting in an inevitable disruption of coexistence.

The Duikers affects their population as well organisms that rely on them for survival. Plants depend on duikers for seed dispersal may lose their primary purpose of reproduction and other organization that depend on these particular plants as their resources would also be usurped of their major source of food.

Duikers are often captured for bush meat, there are the most hunted animals’ .In many cases people in rain forests of Africa, most people rely on duikers as their source of protein. The people, trend of over-exploitation continues at such a high rate, duikers decrease because they serve as reliable food source.

There many challenges that are facing conservation of duikers and they have low lack of sufficient knowledge regarding the organisms with their unique dynamics.