Impala are frequently filed with gazelles in popular accounts because of superficial resemblance: similar size, similar colour, similar leaping escape. Taxonomically they are not close. The impala is the only living species in the genus Aepyceros and is placed in its own tribe, with molecular work suggesting an affinity closer to the wildebeest and hartebeest lineage than to true gazelles.
The leaping is genuine and measurable. Alarmed impala clear obstacles of roughly three metres and cover up to about ten metres in a single bound, and a fleeing herd scatters in several directions at once, which fragments a predator's pursuit.
The more useful trait is dietary flexibility. Impala graze fresh grass in the wet season and shift to browsing leaves, shoots and pods as grass dries out. That switch lets them hold territory through the dry months where obligate grazers must move, which is a large part of why they are among the most abundant antelope in African savannas. Only males carry the lyre-shaped horns.