The cowlike eland is the world's largest antelope and is the animal most often depicted in the early rock art of East Africa. Even today, it still holds an important place in the mythology of some southern African tribes.

Elands belong to the same group as kudus, nyalas, bongos and bushbucks. Most of these antelopes have stripes and spots on the body, a white chevron on the forehead and a short mane on the neck and shoulder that continues along the spine. The males have twisted horns. The eland's horns are thick and tightly spiraled, growing up to 25 inches in females and to 50 inches in males.

In spite of their size, elands are extraordinary jumpers, leaping up to 8 feet from a near standing start.

A tuft of black hair grows out of the eland's prominent dewlap, the loose fold of skin that hangs down from the neck. Usually fawn or tawny-colored, elands turn to gray or bluish-gray as they get older; the oldest animals become almost black. Most animals have several light-colored lateral stripes starting behind the shoulders, and various black markings occur on the legs and other parts of the body. Adult males have a mat or brush of brown hair on the forehead that grows longer and denser as an animal ages. It also becomes smellier, as the males like to rub it in mud and urine.

Elands are found in grassland, mountain, subdesert, acacia savanna and miombo woodland areas.

The social organization of elands is somewhat different from that of other antelopes. Usually older, dominant males are solitary, while other adult males form small groups of three or four. Adult females associate in much larger groups, whose size and membership vary from day to day. Several hundred eland sometimes gather, and males may spend a few hours or even weeks with a female group before becoming solitary again.

Female elands move around a great deal in all seasons, especially in dry season, traveling over a 500-square-mile area. Males usually are more sedentary and prefer to stay year round in a small home range where food and water is available. They do not establish territories.

Stronger, more dominant males have first access to estrus females. As they walk, they make a loud "clicking" sound that can be heard more than a mile away. Once thought to come from their joints or hooves, researchers now say it is made by the tendons in the front legs. A male that clicks doesn't have to be seen, for he asserts his dominance by sound. Younger males will even leave an area to avoid confrontations with him.

Although the eland is often considered a plains-dwelling animal, the major part of its diet is not grass. The animals are browsers, feeding in areas where shrubs and bushes provide the leaves they prefer and using their horns to bring twigs and branches into reach. They also consume certain fruits, large bulbs and tuberous roots.

Eland young are born year round. Females with young calves come together in nursery groups, where the young spend a lot of time grooming and licking each other and developing bonds even stronger than those of a calf with its mother. After the young are weaned at about 3 months, the mothers rejoin the female herds and the calves remain together in the nursery group. With year-round births, some adult females are always present in a nursery group and they defend all juveniles present, not just their own. Juveniles usually remain in the nursery groups until they are almost 2 years old, when they begin to wander off and join other loose groupings of their own sex.