Saiga antelope

"Saiga" redirects here. For the shotgun named after the antelope, see Saiga-12. For the rifle, see Saiga semi-automatic rifle. For the surname, see Saiga (surname).

Saiga antelope
Temporal range: Pleistocene–Recent
↓
A male at the Stepnoi Nature Sanctuary of Astrakhan Oblast, Russia
A female at the Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve of Kakhovka Raion, Ukraine
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Bovidae
Subfamily: Antilopinae
Tribe: Saigini
Genus: Saiga
Gray, 1843
Species:
S. tatarica
Binomial name
Saiga tatarica
(Linnaeus, 1766)
Subspecies
  • S. t. tatarica
  • S. t. mongolica
Reconstructed range (white) and current distribution of the two subspecies Saiga tatarica tatarica (green) and S. t. mongolica (red).
Synonyms[2]
List
  • Antilope saiga Pallas, 1766
  • Antilope scythica Pallas, 1766
  • Capra tatarica Linnaeus, 1766
  • Capra sayga Forster, 1768
  • Cemas colus Oken, 1816
  • Ibex imberbis S. G. Gmelin, 1760

The saiga antelope (/ˈsaɪɡə/, Saiga tatarica), or saiga, is a species of antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe, spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in the southwest into Mongolia in the northeast and Dzungaria in the southeast. During the Pleistocene, it ranged across the mammoth steppe from the British Isles to Beringia. Today, the dominant subspecies (S. t. tatarica) only occurs in Kalmykia and Astrakhan Oblast of Russia and in the Ural, Ustyurt and Betpak-Dala regions of Kazakhstan. A portion of the Ustyurt population migrates south to Uzbekistan and occasionally to Turkmenistan in winter. It is regionally extinct in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, China and southwestern Mongolia. The Mongolian subspecies (S. t. mongolica) occurs only in western Mongolia.[3][4]

  1. ^ a b IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group (2023). "Saiga tatarica". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2023: e.T19832A233712210. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  2. ^ Sokolov, V.E. (1974). "Saiga tatarica" (PDF). Mammalian Species (38): 1–4. doi:10.2307/3503906. JSTOR 3503906. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
  3. ^ Neronov, V. M.; Arylova, N. Yu.; Dubinin, M. Yu.; Karimova, T. Yu.; Lushchekina, A. A. (2013). "Current state and prospects of preserving saiga antelope in Northwest Pre-Caspian region". Arid Ecosystems. 3 (2): 57–64. Bibcode:2013ArEco...3...57N. doi:10.1134/S2079096113020078. S2CID 18451816.
  4. ^ "Saiga/mongolian Saiga (Saiga tatarica)". Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered. Zoological Society of London. Archived from the original on 30 May 2008. Retrieved 19 December 2012.