Distributed widely in sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal and Gambia to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, and south to about 31° in South Africa. Although fairly widespread in southern Africa, the species appears to be rare in West Africa, and it has not been recorded from several countries including Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Niger (Cant and Gilchrist in press). They apparently were introduced to Zanzibar (Pakenham 1984), although neither Stuart and Stuart (1998) nor Goldman and Winther-Hansen (2003) recorded them during camera-trapping surveys, suggesting they are either rare or absent. Recorded to 1,600 m in Ethiopia (Yalden et al. 1996).