Goitered gazelle

Goitered gazelle
Sand gazelle Gazella subgutturosa marica at Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, United Arab Emirates
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Antilopinae
Genus: Gazella
Species: G. subgutturosa
Binomial name
Gazella subgutturosa
(Güldenstädt, 1780)

The goitered or black-tailed (Gazella subgutturosa) is a gazelle found in northern Azerbaijan, eastern Georgia, part of Iran, parts of Iraq and southwestern Pakistan, southeastern Turkey, Afghanistan[2] and the Gobi Desert. The specific name, meaning "full below the throat", refers to the male having an enlargement of the neck and throat during the mating season.

The goitered gazelle inhabits sands and gravel plains and limestone plateau. It runs at high speed, without the leaping, bounding gait seen in other gazelle species. Throughout much of their range, goitered gazelles migrate seasonally. Herds cover 10–30 km per day in the winter, with these distances being reduced to about 1–3 km in summer.

Large herds were also present in the Near East. Some 6,000 years ago, they were captured and killed with the help of desert kites.[3][4] Rock art found in Jordan suggests ritual slaughter.[3]

Until recently, goitered gazelles were considered to represent a single, albeit polymorphic, species. However, recent genetic studies show one of the subspecies, G. s. marica, is paraphyletic in respect to the other populations of goitered gazelles,[5] although gene introgression is observed in the contact zone between the two species.[6]

Subspecies

Several subspecies have been described. Groves & Leslie (2011) distinguish four forms, which they treat as separate monotypic species.[7] Wacher et al. [5] suggest G. s. marica is a separate species, Gazella marica.

It is listed as an endangered species in Pakistan.

References

  1. ↑ Mallon, D.P. (2008). Gazella subgutturosa. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  2. ↑ http://www.rferl.org/
  3. 1 2 Amos, Jonathan (19 April 2011). "Gazelles caught in ancient Syrian 'killing zones'". BBC News. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
  4. ↑ Role of mass-kill hunting strategies in the extirpation of Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in the northern Levant. Guy Bar-Oz, Melinda Zeder, and Frank Hole. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010.
  5. 1 2 Wacher T, Wronski T, Hammond RL, Winney B, Blacket MJ, Hundertmark KJ, Mohammed OB, Omer SA, Macasero W, Lerp H, Plath M, Bleidor C (2011) Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences reveals polyphyly in the goitered gazelle(Gazella subgutturosa). Conserv Genet 12:827–831
  6. ↑ Murtskhvaladze M, Gurielidze Z, Kopaliani N, Tarkhnishvili D (2012) Gene introgression between Gazella subguturrosa and G. marica: limitations of maternal inheritance analysis for species identification with conservation purposes. Acta Theriologica DOI 10.1007/s13364-012-0079-8
  7. ↑ C. P. Groves, D. M. Leslie Jr. (2011). Family Bovidae (Hollwo-horned Ruminants). (585-588). In: Wilson, D. E., Mittermeier, R. A., (Hrsg.). Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Volume 2: Hooved Mammals. Lynx Edicions, 2009. ISBN 978-84-96553-77-4

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