Goitered gazelle


The goitered or black-tailed gazelle is a gazelle found in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, parts of Iraq and Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and in northwest China and Mongolia. The specific name, meaning "full below the throat", refers to the male having an enlargement of the neck and throat during the mating season. It reaches 1.26 meters in length and 43 kg in weight.

Habitat

The goitered gazelle inhabits sands and gravel plains and limestone plateau.
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. Rock art found in Jordan suggests ritual slaughter.

Behavior

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.
Their mating behavior is polygynous and usually occurs in the early winter.

Subspecies

Several subspecies have been described. Groves & Leslie distinguish four forms, which they treat as separate monotypic species. Wacher et al. established that G. s. marica is a separate species, Gazella marica.
It is listed as an endangered species in Pakistan.

Former subspecies

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, although gene introgression is observed in the contact zone between the two species.