show Abstracthide AbstractThe present study explored the rumen bacteria and methanogens present in whole rumen digesta samples from five male impala from Pongola, South Africa. The main objectives were to compare and contrast the diversity and density of the impala rumen microbiota to those previously described from domesticated and wild ruminants. To achieve this goal, microbial DNA was extracted from the digesta samples, the 16S rRNA genes was amplified via PCR, and sequenced by Roche 454-pyrosequencing.