Lesser kudu kudu and nyala form a clade, and collectively separated from the sister clade 13.8 million years ago. The lesser kudu has 38 diploid chromosomes. However, unlike others in the subfamily Tragelaphinae, the X chromosome and Y chromosome are compound and each is fused with one of two identical autosomes. The lesser kudu is a spiral-horned antelope. The head-and-body length is typically between . Males reach about at the shoulder, while females reach . Males typically weigh and females . The bushy tail is long, white underneath and with a black tip at the end. Distinct signs of sexual dimorphism are
Lesser kudu just the lesser kudu by American zoologist Edmund Heller, the type species being "A. strepsiceros". However, the lesser kudu is now placed in "Tragelaphus". In 2005, Sandi Willows-Munro (of the University of KwaZulu-Natal) and colleagues carried out a mitochondrial analysis of the nine "Tragelaphus" species. mtDNA and nDNA data were compared. The results showed that the tribe Tragelaphini is monophyletic with the lesser kudu basal in the phylogeny, followed by the nyala ("T. angasii"). On the basis of mitochondrial data, the lesser kudu separated from its sister clade around 13.7 million years ago. However, the nuclear data show that lesser