[5] Contemporaneously, in English, sportsmen referred to the animal as a Senegal hartebeest, as it was considered the same species as what is now recognised as D. lunatus korrigum.

It was distinguished from the other races by having the black face mask not cover the eyes and muzzle completely; these being surrounded by patches of tan-coloured hair.

[7][11] In 1914 Gilbert Blaine pointed out that Matschie's description in which the dark patch on the upper foreleg extended as a stripe down the front of the leg towards the hooves, if correctly taken from Böhm's painting, and if correctly painted, was not present in any of the specimens known to him in London, and that this was thus another subspecies than the other topi of East Africa, and perhaps restricted to a small area.

He subsequently created another four subspecies based on small differences in hair colour and size, recognising seven in East Africa.

[11] Some recent authors have controversially[12][13][14] split it into three different species,[2] or have classified it as Damaliscus korrigum jimela,[15][16] although this has been rejected by the American Society of Mammalogists' Mammal Diversity Database as of 2021.

[17] In 1910, the Spanish professor Ángel Cabrera described a new species, Damaliscus phalius, also from the Uasin-Gishu plateau, on account of the face mask, normally dark-coloured, being whitish, like a bontebok.

This taxon was described from a skull and a photograph of the slain animal, procured by the sportsman Ricardo de la Huerta, who described to the professor a great herd of this species, and that he saw it in two locations.

[18] If this was indeed the case, when in 1914 in the United States his book on the matter was published, he explained that such a whitish face was a mere variation, seen uncommonly among a herd of otherwise normal topi.

Upon examining a set of thirty specimens from the wider region in the American collection, he described how a number of them had some varying amount of whitish hairs, albeit not across the entire face.

[8] According to the 2005 definition of D. korrigum jimela, topi can be found in the following countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

93,000, with over 90% in protected areas, and a lack of evidence to show an overall decline of over 20% over three generations (20 years) that would justify "near threatened" or "vulnerable" status.

[28][29] A 2016 study by Ogutu et al. compiling aerial survey records for entire Kenya found an average population of 22,239 for the period 2011–2013.

[30] In Uganda the first topi population counts in the Ishasha Flats region in the Rukungiri District, a part of Queen Elizabeth National Park, where the topi seemed to congregate, were calculated from monthly ground count samples from 1963-1967, but these were soon doubted as the methodology used caused an overestimation due to the spatial distribution of the antelopes in aggregations.

To explain the population reduction, Yoaciel et al. pointed to three causes: poaching pressure, lion predation and changes in the vegetation structure.

Lastly, the rangeland was changing in vegetation structure, with the tree species Acacia sieberiana encroaching upon the shrinking grassland.

It was suspected either changed fire regimes and the local reduction in the elephant population due to ivory poaching was causing this afforestation.

The procurement of an excavator for habitat management, different wildfire regimes, translocating excess animals, fencing, wildlife ranching for the hunting industry, community tourism, licensing more sport hunting companies and increasing quotas may alleviate this; the local community is permitted to uproot acacia for firewood, but this has proved ineffective.

No mention made of the 2008 assessment, but it was stated that East had estimated 58,500 in 1998 (the assessment cites the date 1999) in Tanzania and the 2014 book had estimated it as 35,000-46,500, which represents a 25-46% decline over three generations (18 years) in the country which holds the majority of the population, thus assuming the figures for Tanzania are accurate and can be applied to other countries, and assuming East's 1998 numbers for the other countries are accurate, this could mean the world population had dropped by a mean of 36%, which would qualify this species for a "vulnerable" status, although if the population in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda had not fallen below their 1998 estimations the species would actually qualify as "near threatened".