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This chapter presents a systematic paleontology of Bovidae. Bovids are among the most highly diversified mammalian groups, with 137 extant species in 45 genera. Bovids are represented in the late Miocene deposits of the Middle Awash by at least 17 species in 14 genera and seven tribes (Boselaphini, Tragelaphini, Reduncini, Bovini, Aepycerotini, Antilopini, and Neotragini), six of which also exist in sub-Saharan Africa today.

Bovidae comprises 17 different genera, including extinct and living representatives. Bovid fossils identified by horn cores first appeared in the early Miocene of Eurasia and Africa, but the family probably originated in the Oligocene. This chapter discusses the bovid fossils from the Daka Member, which include more than 25 well-preserved crania and hundreds of dental and horn core specimens. The assemblage is especially rich in bovines, alcelaphines, and reduncines, hippotragines, tragelaphines, antilopines, caprines, aepycerotines, neotragines, and possibly ovibovines. Bovids contribute substantial paleoecological information as a result of the tendency for niche specificity among bovid tribes, genera, and species. The chapter shows the conservative view of African bovid phylogeny and presents the entire Daka bovid assemblage as a unit. It also provides brief descriptions and evolutionary backgrounds for the bovid taxa present.

Bovidae contain the cattle, sheep, goats, and antelopes. The word “antelope” is used for bovids outside Europe, mostly in Africa, or not domesticated before Carl Linnaeus' lifetime. It does not correspond with a formal taxonomic category. Most phylogenies postulate bovids being closer to cervids than to giraffids. Unlike the cervoid Moschus in relation to Cervidae, there is no living hornless pecoran thought to be a bovoid (member of a superfamily Bovoidea including Bovidae and any related families, the latter as yet unknown). In Eurasia, tiny bovid-like dental remains are known well back to the early Oligocene of Mongolia, but nothing is known of pre-Miocene ruminants in Africa. Pecorans such as Walangania, Propalaeoryx, and Namibiomeryx do appear in the early Miocene, and the last has been claimed to be a bovid. Subfamilies of Bovidae include Hypsodontinae, Bovinae, Antilopinae, Reduncinae, Oiocerinae, Hippotraginae, and Caprinae. This chapter discusses the overall classification of Bovidae and their evolutionary relationships.

The extant giraffes are an iconic part of the African biota, their large size and elongate legs and neck providing an unmistakable silhouette against the African landscape. Their close relatives, the okapis, were among the latest of the large terrestrial mammals to be documented scientifically and are similarly iconic in terms of their rarity and cryptic nature. Giraffes are characterized by skin-covered ossicones attached to the frontals; only male okapis have ossicones, from which the skin may be worn off the distal portions in mature specimens. The nature of their relationship to each other and to the somewhat bewildering variety of African fossil pecorans is still a matter of debate. The origins of the Giraffoidea remain uncertain although Janis and Scott (1987) suggested they could have originated from the Gelocidae before the early Miocene. The Giraffoidea have been variously allied with the Bovoidea and/or Cervoidea, but Hernández Fernández and Vrba (2005) construe them as a sister group of a clade containing both the Bovidae and Cervidae and suggest they are conceivably most closely related to the antilocaprids. This chapter describes the systematic paleontology of Giraffoidea.