Golden-rumped sengis face two very different kinds of threat, chiefly snakes and raptors. When a predator is already inside the animal's escape distance, the answer is speed, and a sengi can run at around twenty-five kilometres an hour. When the predator is still further off and depends on surprise, running is the worse option, and the sengi advertises itself by slapping the leaf litter with a loud, carrying sound.
This is a pursuit-deterrent signal, the same class of behaviour as a gazelle's stotting. Its logic is that an ambush hunter's chances collapse once detected, so both animals do better ending the encounter without a chase. Field observation documented the behaviour and its association with slow-moving predators.
The golden rump itself sits over a dermal shield about three times thicker than the skin of the animal's back, and is thought to draw a strike away from the head. That reading is an interpretation rather than a demonstrated result. The species remains among the more threatened sengis, and current population figures are estimates rather than counts.