Cephalophus Philantomba Sylvicapra A duiker /ˈdaɪkər/ is a small to medium-sized brown antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa, found in heavily wooded areas.

The subfamily was first described by British zoologist John Edward Gray in 1871 in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London.

[9] In 2012, Anne R. Johnston (of the University of Orleans) and colleagues constructed a cladogram of the subfamily Cephalophinae (duiker) based on mitochondrial analysis.

Duikers are very shy, elusive creatures with a fondness for dense cover; those that tend to live in more open areas, for example, are quick to disappear into thickets for protection.

In tropical rainforest zones of Africa, people nonselectively hunt duikers for their hide, meat, and horns at highly unsustainable rates.

[14] With their bodies low to the ground and with very short horns, forest duikers are built to navigate effectively through dense rainforests and quickly dive into bushes when threatened.

Anatomical features such as the head and neck shape also limit the amount and size of food intake.

Due to their relative size and reserved nature, duikers' primary defense mechanism is to hide from predators.

Duikers are known for their extreme shyness, freezing at the slightest sign of a threat and diving into the nearest bush.

[14] Although duikers occasionally form temporary groups to gather fallen fruit, because so little is known about how they interact and affect one another, determining which factors contribute the most to their endangerment is difficult.

Jarman found that the more selective an organism's diet is, the more dispersed its food will be, and consequently, the smaller the group becomes.

Although "body size is the primary factor in defining the fundamental niches of each species", often dictating the distribution and abundance of duikers in a given habitat,[14] distinguishing between the numerous species of duikers based purely on distribution and abundance is often difficult.

In consequence of such a life pattern, the bay duiker's digestive system has evolved to consume remaining, rather poor-quality foods.

Duikers live in an environment where even a subtle change in their life patterns can greatly impact the surrounding ecosystem.

Constant urbanization and the process of “shifting agriculture” is gradually taking over many of duikers' habitats; at the same time, overexploitation is also permitting the overgrowth of other interacting species, resulting in an inevitable disruption of coexistence.

In addition to the unnaturally high demand for bushmeat, unenforced hunting law is a perpetual threat to many species, including the duiker.

[14] To avoid this outcome, viable methods of conserving duikers are access restriction and captive breeding.

[14] Captive breeding has been used and is often looked to as a solution to ensuring the survival of the duiker population; however, due to the duikers' low reproductive rate, even with the protection provided by the conservationists, captive breeding would not increase the overall population's growth rate.

[14] The greatest challenge facing the conservation of duikers is the lack of sufficient knowledge regarding these organisms, coupled with their unique population dynamics.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the sale of duiker bushmeat as contributing to the spread of filoviruses such as Ebola, citing Georges et al., 1999.