Your morning adorable: Dik-dik in the Serengeti

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Submitter Gesine shares this photo of a dik-dik, a type of tiny antelope native to eastern Africa and parts of southwestern Africa. (This particular specimen was seen in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, Gesine says.) Dik-diks are so small, in fact, that adults are only about the size of fox terriers and weigh 12 pounds or less.

The name dik-dik is onomatopoeic -- it’s meant to sound like the noise they make when frightened.

Fun (and odd) fact: The black spots at the corners of their eyes each contain a scent gland. Dik-diks insert vegetation such as twigs into these glands, then use the secretions they produce to mark their territory.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Gesine / Your Scene