The reliability of commercial labeling of game meat in South Africa is very poor. The extensive substitution of wild game has important implications for conservation and commerce, and for the consumers making decisions on the basis of health, religious beliefs or personal choices.Distance would be a poor indicator for identification of African ungulates species. The efficiency of the character-based method is reliant upon availability of large reference data. The current higher availability of cytochrome b data would make this the marker of choice for African ungulates. The encountered problems of incomplete or erroneous information in databases are discussed.