Doesn't like to live in a group. Mostly found in a pair. It has a short hair vertical mane from the shoulder to the rump and a long tufted tail. Generally female bongo has brighter colored and old males may become much darker. It depends more in its sense of hearing than on sight or smell.
Older animals are often much worn and frayed from the friction of moving through heavy undergrowth.
The bongo prefers to go under or around obstacles rather than jump over them. It likes to wallow in mud puddles and then rub the mud against a tree and polish its horns. Their skin color are also helps them to be invisible from the far. It runs gracefully, and at the full speed through even the thickest tangles of lianas, laying its heavy spiraled horns on its back so that the brush cannot impede its flight. Comments about the bongos of the Fort Worth Zoo .