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The Arabian oryx or white oryx (Oryx leucoryx) is a medium-sized antelope with a distinct shoulder bump, long, straight horns, and a tufted tail. [2] It is a bovid , and the smallest member of the genus Oryx , native to desert and steppe areas of the Arabian Peninsula .
The Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx, Arabic: المها), became extinct in the wild in 1972 in the Arabian Peninsula. It was reintroduced in 1982 in Oman , but poaching has reduced its numbers there. One of the largest populations of Arabian oryxes exists on Sir Bani Yas Island in the United Arab Emirates .
The Arabian oryx was known to be in decline since the early 1900s in the Arabian Peninsula. By the 1930 there were two separate populations isolated from each other. [6] In 1960, Lee M. Talbot reported that Arabian oryx appeared to be extinct in its former range along the southern edge of Ar-Rub' al-Khali.
One species, the scimitar oryx, was once extinct in the wild, though populations are now recovering. The bluebuck went extinct in the last 200 years, and the aurochs went extinct 400 years ago. A third extinct species, the red gazelle, potentially never existed, [2] and the kouprey is potentially extinct, with no sightings since 1969. [3]
It was also present in much of Egypt, except for the Sinai Peninsula, during the Late Paleolithic or early Holocene. [3] However the validity of separate subspecies in Loxodonta africana has been called into question, including the purported North African subspecies L. a. pharaoensis. [2]
Arabian oryx Nubian ibex The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne about equally by the third and fourth toes, rather than mostly or entirely by the third as in perissodactyls . There are about 220 artiodactyl species, including many that are of great economic importance to humans.
These puzzling sites indicate “trails of mobility across southern Arabia,” according to one study.
The bluebuck and sable antelope diverged from each other 2.8 million years ago, while the roan antelope diverged from both of them 4.17 million years ago. Africa was going through climatic oscillations between 3.5 and 2 million years ago, and during a colder period, the ancestors of the sable antelope and bluebuck may have been separated, and ...