Gazella gazella

IUCN

Alias：Gazella gazella

Basic Information

Scientific classification

name：Gazella gazella
Aliases：Gazella gazella
Outline：Ungulata
Family：Artiodactyla Bovidae Gazelle

Vital signs

length：98-115cm
Weight：16-29.5kg
lifetime：8-13years

Feature

Dark brown upper body, white lower body, light brown flanks and limbs

Details

Mountain Gazelle (scientific name: Gazella gazella) is also known as Mountain Gazelle and Idmi in foreign languages. There are 6 subspecies.

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Mountain gazelles gather in groups, usually in small groups of 3-8, sometimes more. The social structure is that of a male leader who has his own territory and maintains a permanent group of several young females. Males compete for control of territory, and when border conflicts occur between two areas, the outcome is usually determined by violent fights. The contestants stop about 30 cm apart and butt each other's heads several times. In a fight between young mountain gazelles trying to occupy the territory of another country, males can cause serious injuries to each other and even break the legs of each other.

Mountain gazelles are diurnal animals. All subspecies, except the Palestinian mountain gazelle, graze under the moonlight, and usually rest at dawn and dusk, spending the hottest time of the day.

Mountain gazelles are typical herbivores. The diet consists of herbs and shrubs, which vary according to the habitat. Mountain gazelles are found in the Arabian Peninsula and Israel, due to the presence of acacia trees in the area, which form a large number of leaves and pods. They usually walk to the branches of acacia trees, stand on their hind legs, and lean on their front legs to eat leaves and pods. Due to the scarcity of local water sources, mountain gazelles dig underground organs of bulbs, corms and other fleshy plants to improve the water balance in their bodies.

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Mountain gazelles can reproduce throughout the year, with peak seasons in spring and autumn. The gestation period is about 180 days, with one calf born per litter, and they can stand and walk soon after birth. The life span of artificially raised mountain gazelles is about 13 years, while the life span of wild mountain gazelles is up to 8 years.

A few days before giving birth, female mountain gazelles will leave the group for up to two months. The lamb can stand and walk soon after birth. But for the first week, it will curl up with its eyes closed in the place where it hides with its mother. The mother forages nearby and guards her child, repelling small predators such as foxes, or trying to lead larger predators such as jackals and wolves out of the hiding place of the lamb. After 3-6 weeks, the cubs gradually begin to walk around with their mothers and begin to feed solid food. The lactation period can last for 3-4 months. Young females will stay in their mother's group, while males will leave their original group at around six months and join a group of young single males. Females reach sexual maturity after a year, but more often than two years; males need 15 to 20 months, but in reality, adult males rarely participate in reproduction at this time until they occupy their own territory after three years old.

The mountain gazelle was once widespread in the Arabian Peninsula, north to southern Syria and west to the Sinai Peninsula. It was last recorded in Egypt in 1932. It has not been recorded in Syria since the 1970s. In Lebanon, the species is believed to have become extinct in 1945. It was last recorded in Jordan in 1987.

The mountain gazelle is threatened from several sources, but the main causes of its decline are habitat loss and hunting. Large areas of habitat have been lost to agricultural development, pasture fencing, livestock and human settlements and road construction. Habitat degradation has been caused by the decline of groundwater levels due to the extraction of groundwater for agricultural production. This has caused the disappearance of important food sources such as acacia trees and shrubs and perennial plants.

Listed in the 2008 Red List of Threatened Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) ver 3.1 - Vulnerable (VU).

Protect wild animals and eliminate game.

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Location

Origin: Israel, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
Possibly extinct: Jordan.
Regionally extinct: Egypt, Syrian Arab Republic.
Introduced: Islamic Republic of Iran.
Mainly distributed in the Arabian Peninsula, inhabiting mountains, hills and coastal plains. Mountain gazelles live in low-altitude mountainous areas, sometimes with very steep terrain, but they avoid rocky areas and walking on rocks. They prefer plateaus, hills, foothills and valleys between mountains, open gravel or sandy plains and forest areas, but also occur in true desert areas and coastal dunes. In Saudi Arabia, they usually live in riverbeds in canyons and rolling hills. Mountain gazelles can withstand harsh climatic conditions. They can survive in the very hot and dry Jordan Valley, the Negev Desert and the Dhofar Desert, where temperatures can reach 45 degrees Celsius, and in northern Israel, where winter nights with snow covering the ground and sub-zero temperatures are not uncommon.

Form

Mountain gazelle, male head and body length 101-115 cm; weight 17-29.5 kg; female head and body length 98-101 cm; horn length 5.8-11.5 cm; weight 16-25 kg.
Mountain gazelles are dark brown on the upper body, white on the lower body, and light brown on the flanks and limbs. The face is marked with gray-white stripes intersecting with black edges. There is also a narrow dark lateral band that separates the flank and white lower body. The fur color of the lower flank is light yellow. The black tail is short and bushy. The ears are also relatively short. The white dividing line of the lower body reaches the thigh joint. The fur is short and rounded in the summer when the solar radiation is strong, and the fur will be thickened in winter to resist the cold and freezing rain in winter.
Both sexes have horns. Males are 220-294 mm long, and the length of the horns is largely affected by the habitat. The horns of female mountain gazelles in the same group are 70% smaller than those of mal