 The holotype specimen, a male, was about 16 months old when caught alive by a Mr. Müller in 1914 near the Kunene River (Kaokoveld, border region between Namibia and Angola), and shipped to the Tierpark Hagenbeck, the Hamburg Zoo, in Germany.After its death on 15 October 1916, its hide and skeleton was preserved at the Zoologisches Museum Hamburg (specimen no.40056) and described as belonging to a new species, "Opsiceros occidentalis", by L. Zukowsky in 1922.