The day begins in the hush before sunrise, when the desert is more silhouette than landscape and the air carries a coolness you would never associate with Dubai at noon. Headlamps arc across the sand as the balloon crew unrolls canvas and ropes that look like threads waiting to stitch the morning together. Hot air balloon Dubai peaceful ride Burners cough, then roar, pouring liquid flame into the billowing envelope until it rises, a gentle leviathan tugging at the seams of darkness. The horizon shows a thin seam of apricot. Someone in the group goes silent. Someone else laughs to hide the ache of wonder. You step into the wicker basket, balancing on the rim the way a child might step over the threshold into a story.
Lift is not a jolt but a persuasion, a soft untying from the ground. The earth recedes with surprising grace, as if it has agreed to let you go for an hour. The crew on the sand become figures in a snow globe, waving. Dubai balloon flight with falconry The burners hiss and flare again; the balloon pivots slightly, responding to invisible rivers of air. Then there is the first full inhale-your own-as the world resolves from a wash of gray into something unbelievably detailed: a lacework of dunes curled like sleeping cats, brush strokes of camel tracks looping between them, tufts of ghaf trees keeping their own counsel.
At altitude the desert shows you its topography of light. Sunrise here isn't just a color; it's a geometry. Long shadows pour off each dune's crest, making a relief map of ridges and troughs. The balloon floats not so much over a place as over time, moving through the few minutes when the day is being decided. If you are lucky, you catch sight of a herd of Arabian oryx-white commas against the amber punctuation of sand-or a few gazelles carving pale arcs through the morning. A falcon might slice across the vista, a drawn blade suddenly alive.
You had come for hot air balloon Dubai sky views, and there is that, of course-the promise of grand spectacle, the photograph you have been saving space for in your mind. But the experience refuses to be reduced to a single frame. Hot air balloon Dubai shared basket flight It is a tapestry of small astonishments: the warmth of the burner's breath on your cheek; the gentle sway that makes no one seasick; the pilot's hand resting easy on the valve line as if he's leading a well-trained horse. You notice the silence pressed around the basket, how complete it is after the burners cut off. It is the kind of quiet that magnifies the smallest sounds: the click of a camera, the rustle of a jacket, the collective exhale of people in agreement without speaking.
Far to the west, the city makes its case. Dubai's skyline appears first as a rumor, then as a serration in the haze, and finally as objects you know by name and from postcards. The Burj Khalifa rises like the world's most confident pencil, drawing a line between desert and sky. The towers around it punctuate a comma-rich sentence about ambition. If the wind has placed you right, the Persian Gulf is a slab of mercury, the arc of the Palm Jumeirah a human-made crescent that, from up here, looks as inevitable as the phases of the moon. The contrast is dizzying: the patient, ancient dune sea and the brand-new geometry of a city that every year edits itself with cranes and glass.
Perspective is a gift of height, but it is also a manner of attention. Watching the sun push higher, you start to think about speed. Down there is Dubai at its habitual pace-lanes of traffic, construction schedules, brunch reservations, deals negotiated in air-conditioned rooms. Up here is the opposite. The balloon submits to the slow will of air currents. You cannot steer so much as you can choose altitudes and accept the conversations that different layers of wind want to have. This surrender breeds a kind of trust. The pilot speaks, not to command, but to interpret. “We're catching a southern drift,” he says, almost to himself. The basket edges into a slightly faster river of air, and the city slips a little closer, or a little farther, in your viewfinder.
People share lives in the short space between takeoff and landing. A couple marking an anniversary keeps reaching for each other's hands.
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A solo traveler, restless for years, says it took a move to the Gulf to learn how to be still. A family from the suburbs of somewhere you've never visited counts the balloons dotting the sky-some below, some above, bright punctuation marks in a paragraph of blue. The burner roars, and for a second the group looks like a campfire circle, faces lit from within. The pilot tells a story about a flight last February when fog turned the world into a page without lines, and they floated between two clouds like a bookmark.
There is a tender mundanity underpinning the romance-the safety briefing at the launch site about landing positions, the way the crew checks the porosity of the fabric, how the ground team reads the wind forecasts at 4 a.m. Flights often launch in the cool months because that's when the air is calmest and the thermals behave. Some days the desert says, not today-wind too playful, heat too eager-and the balloonists listen. Awe is more durable when it is earned.
Descent begins almost imperceptibly, the way summer begins to end weeks before you admit it. The dunes climb to meet you. A cluster of camels turns their long faces up, curious and unimpressed. The pilot calls for landing positions, voices steady, bodies soft with the confidence of someone else's competence. The basket kisses the ground, skips once, then settles with the sigh of a book closing. On the sand, the crew arrives in a ballet of utility-ropes, laughter, the satisfying thump as the envelope exhales. Your legs learn ground again, and the earth feels heavier than it did an hour ago, but in a gracious way, like a hand on your shoulder.
Often there is more. A table appears in the shade of a canvas awning-local bread, dates that taste of sun, coffee bitter and bright, eggs that actually taste like eggs.
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Sometimes a falconer arrives, leather glove extended, explaining the old relationship between desert people and these improbable hunters. The bird shifts weight from talon to talon, unmoved by any of our inventions except the one that taught us patience.
Later, when you are back among glass towers and ordered boulevards, the morning at altitude shadows you, a memory with texture. Traffic still thickens and thins, appointments accumulate, notifications breed, but something has been quietly rearranged. You have seen Dubai not as an imposition on the desert but as a conversation with it-earnest, sometimes loud, occasionally tender. From above, the edges between natural and made seem less like battle lines and more like seams. The city is a bold embroidery over ancient cloth, and both are beautiful in different light.
Hot air ballooning is sometimes described as a bucket-list item, a phrase that feels both apt and insufficient. Lists are about completion; this experience is about expansion. It enlarges your sense of where you are and what it means to be there. The view from the basket is not just a panorama but a discipline: look slowly, listen to the hush, let your attention be as wide as the horizon and as acute as the shadow of a single dune's rim. Hot air balloon Dubai quiet desert . It teaches, without sermon, that altitude can be a form of humility.
When the evening comes and your phone recycles the day's best images, you'll notice that the photographs, as lovely as they are, don't quite capture the full grammar of the morning. Hot air balloon Dubai relaxing adventure The warmth of the burner, the scent of heated canvas, the trusting laughter of strangers, the geometry of light-these live beyond pixels. But the images will do what good souvenirs always do: they point back to a door you can open again in your mind, to the hour when the desert made room in the sky and you rose, quiet and brief and utterly present, into its patient blue.
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About Arabian oryx
Species of antelope
Arabian oryx
Male in Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)[1]
CITES Appendix I [1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Artiodactyla
Family:
Bovidae
Subfamily:
Hippotraginae
Genus:
Oryx
Species:
O. leucoryx
Binomial name
Oryx leucoryx
(Pallas, 1777)
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 was extinct in the wild by the early 1970s, but was saved in zoos and private reserves, and was reintroduced into the wild starting in 1980.
In 1986, the Arabian oryx was classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, and in 2011, it was the first animal to revert to vulnerable status after previously being listed as extinct in the wild. It is listed in CITES Appendix I. In 2016, populations were estimated at 1,220 individuals in the wild, including 850 mature individuals, and 6,000–7,000 in captivity worldwide.[1]
Etymology
[edit]
The taxonomic name Oryx leucoryx is from the Greek orux (gazelle or antelope) and leukos (white). The Arabian oryx is also called the white oryx in English, dishon in Hebrew,[3] and is known as maha, wudhaihi, baqar al-wahsh, and boosolah in Arabic.[4]
Taxonomy
[edit]
The name "oryx" was introduced by Peter Simon Pallas in 1767 for the common eland as Antilope oryx. He also scientifically described the Arabian oryx as Oryx leucoryx, giving its range as "Arabia, and perhaps Libya". In 1816, Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville subdivided the antelope group, adopted Oryx as a genus name, and changed the species name Antilope oryx to Oryx gazella. In 1826, Martin Lichtenstein confused matters by transferring the name Oryx leucoryx to the scimitar oryx, now Oryx dammah. The Zoological Society of London obtained the first living individual in Europe in 1857. Not realizing this might be the Oryx leucoryx of previous authors, John Edward Gray proposed calling it Oryx beatrix after Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom. Oldfield Thomas renamed the scimitar oryx as Oryx algazal in 1903 and gave the Arabian oryx its original name.[4]
Description
[edit]
In Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in Israel
The Arabian oryx' coat is an almost luminous white, the undersides and legs are brown, and black stripes occur where the head meets the neck, on the forehead, on the nose, and going from the horn down across the eye to the mouth. Both sexes have long, straight or slightly curved, ringed horns which are 0.61–1.49 m (2–4.9 ft). It stands between 0.79 and 1.25 m (2.6 and 4.1 ft) tall at the shoulder and typically weighs between 220 to 460 lb (100 to 209 kg).[5][2]
Distribution and habitat
[edit]
Historically, the Arabian oryx probably ranged throughout most of the Middle East. In the early 1800s, they could still be found in the Sinai, Palestine, the Transjordan, much of Iraq, and most of the Arabian Peninsula. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, their range was pushed back towards Saudi Arabia, and by 1914, only a few survived outside that country. A few were reported in Jordan into the 1930s, but by the mid-1930s, the only remaining populations were in the Nafud Desert in northwestern Saudi Arabia and the Rub' al Khali in the south.[2]
In the 1930s, Arabian princes and oil company clerks started hunting Arabian oryxes with automobiles and rifles. Hunts grew in size, and some were reported to employ as many as 300 vehicles. By the middle of the 20th century, the northern population was effectively extinct.[2] The last Arabian oryx in the wild before reintroduction was reported in 1972.[6]
Arabian oryxes prefer to range in gravel deserts or hard sand, where their speed and endurance will protect them from most predators and hunters on foot. In the sand deserts in Saudi Arabia, they used to be found in the hard sand areas of the flats between the softer dunes and ridges.[2]
Arabian oryxes have been reintroduced to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Jordan. A small population was introduced on Hawar Island, Bahrain, and large semi-managed populations at several sites in Qatar and the UAE. The total reintroduced population is now estimated to be around 1,000. This puts the Arabian oryx well over the threshold of 250 mature individuals needed to qualify for endangered status. However, the majority of the population is concentrated in Saudi Arabia.[1]
Behaviour and ecology
[edit]
The Arabian oryx rests during the heat of the day. A herd in Oman can range over 3,000 km2 (1,200 sq mi). Packs are of mixed sex and usually comprise between 2 and 15 induvials, though herds of up to 100 have been reported. Arabian oryxes are generally not aggressive toward one another, which allows herds to exist peacefully for some time.[7]
Feeding
[edit]
The diets of the Arabian oryx consist mainly of grasses, but it eats a large variety of vegetation, including buds, herbs, fruit, tubers and roots. Herds follow infrequent rains to eat the new plants that grow afterwards. They can go for several weeks without water.[7] In Oman, it primarily eats grasses of the genus Stipagrostis, flowers from Stipagrostis plants appeared highest in crude protein and water, while leaves seemed a better food source with other vegetation.[8]
Behavior
[edit]
When the Arabian oryx is not wandering its habitat or eating, it digs shallow depressions in the soft ground under shrubs or trees for resting. They can detect rainfall from a distance and follow in the direction of fresh plant growth. The number of individuals in a herd can vary greatly (up to 100 have been reported occasionally), but the average is 10 or fewer individuals.[9] Bachelor herds do not occur, and single territorial males are rare. Herds establish a straightforward hierarchy that involves all females and males above the age of about seven months.[10] Arabian oryxes tend to maintain visual contact with other herd members, with subordinate males taking positions between the main body of the herd and the outlying females. If separated, males will search areas where the herd last visited, settling into a solitary existence until the herd's return. Where water and grazing conditions permit, male Arabian oryxes establish territories. Bachelor males are solitary.[11] A dominance hierarchy is created within the herd by posturing displays, which avoid the danger of serious injury their long, sharp horns could potentially inflict. Males and females use their horns to defend the sparse territorial resources against interlopers.[12]
Adaptations for desert environments
[edit]
The Arabian oryx changes its physiology and behaviour at different times of the year to increase survival during times when food and water are in limited supply. During the summer, when droughts are common in the desert environments where it lives, the Arabian oryx will drastically reduce its minimal fasting metabolic rate by lying completely inactive beneath shade trees during the day and ranging over smaller areas at night to forage.[13] By letting its body temperature rise during the heat of the day, it uses less evaporative cooling and retains more body water, and at night, the cool night air lowers its temperature back to the normal range.[14] The oryx's arterial blood temperature is partly powered by a network of small arterial vessels with a large surface area called the rete mirabile, which branches from the two carotid arteries to the brain and allows for heat exchange between warm arterial blood and the cooler blood in the sinus cavities.[14] Because of these changes in behaviour and physiology, it was shown that Arabian oryx can reduce their urine volume, faecal water loss, and resting metabolic rate by at least 50%.[15]
The Arabian wolf is the Arabian oryx's only predator. In captivity and safe conditions in the wild, it has a maximum life span of up to 20 years.[11] In periods of drought, though, their life expectancy may be significantly reduced by malnutrition and dehydration. Other causes of death include fights between males, snakebites, disease, and drowning during floods.[16]
Importance to humans
[edit]
South Arabian fragment of a stela, depicts a reclining ibex and three Arabian oryx heads. The ibex was one of the most sacred animals in South Arabia, while the oryx antelope was associated with the god Attar, 5th century BC.
The Arabian oryx is the national animal of Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates,[17] Bahrain, and Qatar.[18]
The Arabian oryx is also the namesake of several businesses on the Arabian peninsula, notably Al Maha Airways and Al Maha Petroleum.
In the King James Version of the Bible, the word re'em is translated as 'unicorn'. In Modern Hebrew, the name re'em lavan, meaning white oryx, is used in error for the scimitar-horned oryxes living in the sanctuary Yotvata Hai Bar near Eilat.[19] The scimitar oryx is called re'em Sahara. The Arabian name ri'ïm is the equivalent of the Hebrew name re'em, also meaning white oryx, suggesting a borrowing from the Early Modern Era.
A Qatari oryx named "Orry" was chosen as the official games mascot for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha,[20] and is shown on tailfins of planes belonging to Middle Eastern airline Qatar Airways.
Unicorn myth
[edit]
The myth of the one-horned unicorn may be based on oryxes that have lost one horn. Aristotle and Pliny the Elder held that the oryx was the unicorn's "prototype".[21] From certain angles, the oryx may seem to have one horn rather than two,[22][23] and given that its horns are made from hollow bone that cannot be regrown, if an Arabian oryx were to lose one of its horns, for the rest of its life, it would have only one.[21]
Another source for the concept may have originated from the translation of the Hebrew word re'em into Greek as μονόκερως, monokeros, in the Septuagint.[24] In Psalm 22:21, the word karen, meaning horn, is written in singular. The Roman Catholic Vulgata and the Douay-Rheims Bible translated re'em as rhinoceros; other translations are names for a wild bull, wild oxen, buffalo, or gaur, but in some languages, a word for unicorn is maintained. The Arabic translation alrim is the correct choice etymologically, meaning 'white oryx'.[25]
Conservation
[edit]
Main article: Arabian oryx reintroduction
Arabian oryx in Al Ain Zoo
The Phoenix Zoo and the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society of London (now Fauna and Flora International), with financial help from the World Wildlife Fund, are credited with saving the Arabian oryx from extinction. In 1962, these groups started the first captive-breeding herd in any zoo, at the Phoenix Zoo, sometimes referred to as "Operation Oryx".[26][27] Starting with nine animals, the Phoenix Zoo has had over 240 successful births. From Phoenix, Arabian oryxes were sent to other zoos and parks to start new herds.
In 1968, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, out of concern for the land's wildlife, particularly ungulates such as the Arabian oryx, founded the Al Ain Zoo to conserve them.[28]
Arabian oryxes were hunted to extinction in the wild by 1972. By 1980, the number of Arabian oryxes in captivity had increased to the point that Arabian oryx reintroduction was started. The first release, to Oman, was attempted with Arabian oryxes from the San Diego Wild Animal Park.[6] Although numbers in Oman have declined, there are now wild populations in Saudi Arabia and Israel,[29][30] as well. One of the largest populations is found in Mahazat as-Sayd Protected Area, a large, fenced reserve in Saudi Arabia, covering more than 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi).[1]
On June 28, 2007, Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary was the first site ever to be removed from the UNESCO World Heritage List. UNESCO's reason for this was the Omani government's decision to open 90% of the site to oil prospecting. The Arabian oryx population on the site has been reduced from 450 in 1996 to only 65 in 2007. At that time, there were fewer than four breeding pairs left on the site.[31][needs update]
In June 2011, the Arabian oryx was relisted as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. The IUCN estimated there were more than 1,200 Arabian oryx in the wild as of 4 December 2020[update] 2016, with 6,000–7,000 held in captivity worldwide in zoos, preserves, and private collections. Some of these are in large, fenced enclosures (free-roaming), including those in Syria (Al Talila), Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE.[1] This is the first time the IUCN has reclassified a species as vulnerable after it had been listed as extinct in the wild.[32] The Arabian oryx is also listed in CITES Appendix I.[1]
References
[edit]
^ abcdefg
IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group (2017). "Oryx leucoryx". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2017 e.T15569A50191626. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-2.RLTS.T15569A50191626.en. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
^ abcdeTalbot, L. M. (1960). A Look at Threatened Species. The Fauna Preservation Society. pp. 84–91.
^Slifkin, Nathan, The Torah encyclopedia of the Animal kingdom, vol.1, OU Press, New York, 2015, pp.272-275
^ ab"Conservation Programme for Arabian Oryx: Taxonomy & description". National Wildlife Research Center. 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-09-04. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
^"Oryx". Animals & Plants. San Diego Zoo. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
^ abStanley-Price, Mark (July–August 1982). "The Yalooni Transfer". Saudi Aramco World. Archived from the original on 2011-06-10. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
^ abMassicot, P. (2007). "Arabian Oryx". Animal Info. Archived from the original on 25 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
^Spalton, J. A. (1999). "The food supply of Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) in the desert of Oman". Journal of Zoology. 248 (4): 433–441. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1999.tb01043.x.
^Leu, H. (2001) "Oryx leucoryx" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web.
^How to go wild. New Scientist (1989-10-28). Retrieved on 2013-01-01.
^ ab"Arabian Oryx". The Phoenix Zoo. Archived from the original on 15 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^BBC (2012-04-27). Science & Nature – Wildfacts – Arabian oryx. Retrieved on 2013-01-01.
^Williams, J. B.; Ostrowski, S.; Bedin, E.; Ismail, K. (2001). "Seasonal variation in energy expenditure, water flux and food consumption of Arabian oryx Oryx leucoryx". Journal of Experimental Biology. 204 (13): 2301–2311. Bibcode:2001JExpB.204.2301W. doi:10.1242/jeb.204.13.2301. PMID 11507113.
^ ab"Animals at the extremes: The desert environment". June 10, 2019. Archived from the original on 2017-01-05. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
^Ostrowski, S.; Williams, J. B.; Mésochina, P.; Sauerwein, H. (2005). "Physiological acclimation of a desert antelope, Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), to long-term food and water restriction". Journal of Comparative Physiology B. 176 (3): 191–201. doi:10.1007/s00360-005-0040-0. PMID 16283332. S2CID 14680361.
^"The Oryx Facts". The Arabian Oryx Project. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
^"The UAE National Symbols..." TEACH United Arab Emirates. 2 (2). Jess Jumeira School. Nov–Dec 2014.
^Orr, Tamra (30 June 2008). Qatar. Marshall Cavendish. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-7614-2566-3. Retrieved 30 July 2011.
^The Arabian Oryx Project – Timeline. oryxoman.com
^Phoenix Zoo Species Survival Plan Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine. Phoenixzoo.org (2006-01-03). Retrieved on 2013-01-01.
^"History". Al Ain Zoo. 15 October 2017. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
^Saltz, D. (1998). "A long-term systematic approach to planning reintroductions: the Persian fallow deer and the Arabian oryx in Israel". Animal Conservation. 1 (4): 245. Bibcode:1998AnCon...1..245S. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1795.1998.tb00035.x. S2CID 85943063.
^Gilad, O.; Grant, W.E. & Saltz, D. (2008). "Simulated dynamics of Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) in the Israeli Negev: Effects of migration corridors and post-reintroduction changes in natality on population viability". Ecological Modelling. 210 (1–2): 169. Bibcode:2008EcMod.210..169G. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2007.07.015.
^"Oman's Arabian Oryx Sanctuary: first site ever to be deleted from UNESCO's World Heritage List". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Archived from the original on 18 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
^Platt, John (17 June 2011). "Arabian Oryx Makes History as First Species to Be Upgraded from "Extinct in the Wild" to "Vulnerable"". scientificamerican.com. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
Further reading
[edit]
Silverberg, Robert (1967). The Auk, the Dodo, and the Oryx: Vanished and Vanishing Creatures. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. LCCN 67002554. L.C. Card AC 67-10476.
External links
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oryx leucoryx (category)
Wikispecies has information related to Oryx leucoryx.
Images and movies of the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) at Arkive
Living Desert article
Arabian Oryx at Al Wabra Wildlife Preserve
Oryx leucoryx on Animal Diversity Web
Oryx leucoryx on Mammal Species of the World
v
t
e
Extant Artiodactyla species
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Eutheria
Superorder: Laurasiatheria
Suborder Ruminantia
Antilocapridae
Antilocapra
Pronghorn (A. americana)
Giraffidae
Okapia
Okapi (O. johnstoni)
Giraffa
Northern giraffe (G. camelopardalis)
Southern giraffe (G. giraffa)
Reticulated giraffe (G. reticulata)
Masai giraffe (G. tippelskirchi)
Moschidae
Moschus
Anhui musk deer (M. anhuiensis)
Dwarf musk deer (M. berezovskii)
Alpine musk deer (M. chrysogaster)
Kashmir musk deer (M. cupreus)
Black musk deer (M. fuscus)
Himalayan musk deer (M. leucogaster)
Siberian musk deer (M. moschiferus)
Tragulidae
Hyemoschus
Water chevrotain (H. aquaticus)
Moschiola
Indian spotted chevrotain (M. indica)
Yellow-striped chevrotain (M. kathygre)
Sri Lankan spotted chevrotain (M. meminna)
Tragulus
Java mouse-deer (T. javanicus)
Lesser mouse-deer (T. kanchil)
Greater mouse-deer (T. napu)
Philippine mouse-deer (T. nigricans)
Vietnam mouse-deer (T. versicolor)
Williamson's mouse-deer (T. williamsoni)
Cervidae
Large family listed below
Bovidae
Large family listed below
Family Cervidae
Cervinae
Muntiacus
Bornean yellow muntjac (M. atherodes)
Hairy-fronted muntjac (M. crinifrons)
Fea's muntjac (M. feae)
Gongshan muntjac (M. gongshanensis)
Sumatran muntjac (M. montanus)
Southern red muntjac (M. muntjak)
Pu Hoat muntjac (M. puhoatensis)
Leaf muntjac (M. putaoensis)
Reeves's muntjac (M. reevesi)
Roosevelt's muntjac (M. rooseveltorum)
Truong Son muntjac (M. truongsonensis)
Northern red muntjac (M. vaginalis)
Giant muntjac (M. vuquangensis)
Elaphodus
Tufted deer (E. cephalophus)
Dama
European fallow deer (D. dama)
Persian fallow deer (D. mesopotamica)
Axis
Chital (A. axis)
Calamian deer (A. calamianensis)
Bawean deer (A. kuhlii)
Hog deer (A. porcinus)
Rucervus
Barasingha (R. duvaucelii)
Eld's deer (R. eldii)
Elaphurus
Père David's deer (E. davidianus)
Rusa
Visayan spotted deer (R. alfredi)
Philippine sambar (R. mariannus)
Rusa deer (R. timorensis)
Sambar (R. unicolor)
Cervus
Thorold's deer (C. albirostris)
Red deer (C. elaphus)
Elk (C. canadensis)
Central Asian red deer (C. hanglu)
Sika deer (C. nippon)
Capreolinae
Alces
Moose (A. alces)
Hydropotes
Water deer (H. inermis)
Capreolus
European roe deer (C. capreolus)
Siberian roe deer (C. pygargus)
Rangifer
Reindeer (R. tarandus)
Hippocamelus
Taruca (H. antisensis)
South Andean deer (H. bisulcus)
Mazama
Red brocket (M. americana)
Small red brocket (M. bororo)
Merida brocket (M. bricenii)
Dwarf brocket (M. chunyi)
Pygmy brocket (M. nana)
Amazonian brown brocket (M. nemorivaga)
Little red brocket (M. rufina)
Central American red brocket (M. temama)
Ozotoceros
Pampas deer (O. bezoarticus)
Blastocerus
Marsh deer (B. dichotomus)
Pudu
Northern pudu (P. mephistophiles)?
Southern pudu (P. pudu)
Pudella
Peruvian Yungas pudu (P. carlae)
Northern pudu (P. mephistophiles)
Odocoileus
Mule deer (O. hemionus)
Yucatan brown brocket (O. pandora)
White-tailed deer (O. virginianus)
Subulo
Gray brocket (S. gouazoubira)
Family Bovidae
Hippotraginae
Hippotragus
Roan antelope (H. equinus)
Sable antelope (H. niger)
Oryx
East African oryx (O. beisa)
Scimitar oryx (O. dammah)
Gemsbok (O. gazella)
Arabian oryx (O. leucoryx)
Addax
Addax (A. nasomaculatus)
Reduncinae
Kobus
Waterbuck (K. ellipsiprymnus)
Kob (K. kob)
Lechwe (K. leche)
Nile lechwe (K. megaceros)
Puku (K. vardonii)
Redunca
Southern reedbuck (R. arundinum)
Mountain reedbuck (R. fulvorufula)
Bohor reedbuck (R. redunca)
Aepycerotinae
Aepyceros
Impala (A. melampus)
Peleinae
Pelea
Grey rhebok (P. capreolus)
Alcelaphinae
Beatragus
Hirola (B. hunteri)
Damaliscus
Common tsessebe (D. lunatus)
Bontebok (D. pygargus)
Alcelaphus
Hartebeest (A. buselaphus)
Connochaetes
Black wildebeest (C. gnou)
Blue wildebeest (C. taurinus)
Pantholopinae
Pantholops
Tibetan antelope (P. hodgsonii)
Caprinae
Large subfamily listed below
Bovinae
Large subfamily listed below
Antilopinae
Large subfamily listed below
Family Bovidae (subfamily Caprinae)
Ammotragus
Barbary sheep (A. lervia)
Arabitragus
Arabian tahr (A. jayakari)
Budorcas
Takin (B. taxicolor)
Capra
Wild goat (C. aegagrus)
West Caucasian tur (C. caucasia)
East Caucasian tur (C. cylindricornis)
Markhor (C. falconeri)
Domestic goat (C. hircus)
Alpine ibex (C. ibex)
Nubian ibex (C. nubiana)
Iberian ibex (C. pyrenaica)
Siberian ibex (C. sibirica)
Walia ibex (C. walie)
Capricornis
Japanese serow (C. crispus)
Red serow (C. rubidus)
Mainland serow (C. sumatraensis)
Taiwan serow (C. swinhoei)
Hemitragus
Himalayan tahr (H. jemlahicus)
Naemorhedus
Red goral (N. baileyi)
Long-tailed goral (N. caudatus)
Himalayan goral (N. goral)
Chinese goral (N. griseus)
Oreamnos
Mountain goat (O. americanus)
Ovibos
Muskox (O. moschatus)
Nilgiritragus
Nilgiri tahr (N. hylocrius)
Ovis
Argali (O. ammon)
Domestic sheep (O. aries)
Bighorn sheep (O. canadensis)
Dall sheep (O. dalli)
Mouflon (O. gmelini)
Snow sheep (O. nivicola)
Urial (O. vignei)
Pseudois
Bharal (P. nayaur)
Rupicapra
Pyrenean chamois (R. pyrenaica)
Chamois (R. rupicapra)
Family Bovidae (subfamily Bovinae)
Boselaphini
Tetracerus
Four-horned antelope (T. quadricornis)
Boselaphus
Nilgai (B. tragocamelus)
Bovini
Bubalus
Wild water buffalo (B. arnee)
Domestic water buffalo (B. bubalis)
Lowland anoa (B. depressicornis)
Tamaraw (B. mindorensis)
Mountain anoa (B. quarlesi)
Bos
American bison (B. bison)
European bison (B. bonasus)
Bali cattle (B. domesticus)
Gayal (B. frontalis)
Gaur (B. gaurus)
Domestic yak (B. grunniens)
Zebu (B. indicus)
Banteng (B. javanicus)
Wild yak (B. mutus)
Cattle (B. taurus)
Pseudoryx
Saola (P. nghetinhensis)
Syncerus
African buffalo (S. caffer)
Tragelaphini
Tragelaphus (including kudus)
Nyala (T. angasii)
Mountain nyala (T. buxtoni)
Bongo (T. eurycerus)
Lesser kudu (T. imberbis)
Harnessed bushbuck (T. scriptus)
Sitatunga (T. spekeii)
Greater kudu (T. strepsiceros)
Cape bushbuck (T. sylvaticus)
Taurotragus
Giant eland (T. derbianus)
Common eland (T. oryx)
Family Bovidae (subfamily Antilopinae)
Antilopini
Ammodorcas
Dibatag (A. clarkei)
Antidorcas
Springbok (A. marsupialis)
Antilope
Blackbuck (A. cervicapra)
Eudorcas
Mongalla gazelle (E. albonotata)
Red-fronted gazelle (E. rufifrons)
Thomson's gazelle (E. thomsonii)
Heuglin's gazelle (E. tilonura)
Gazella
Arabian gazelle (G. arabica)
Chinkara (G. bennettii)
Cuvier's gazelle (G. cuvieri)
Dorcas gazelle (G. dorcas)
Mountain gazelle (G. gazella)
Rhim gazelle (G. leptoceros)
Speke's gazelle (G. spekei)
Goitered gazelle (G. subgutturosa)
Litocranius
Gerenuk (L. walleri)
Nanger
Dama gazelle (N. dama)
Grant's gazelle (N. granti)
Bright's gazelle (N. notatus)
Peter's gazelle (N. petersii)
Soemmerring's gazelle (N. soemmerringii)
Procapra
Mongolian gazelle (P. gutturosa)
Goa (P. picticaudata)
Przewalski's gazelle (P. przewalskii)
Saigini
Saiga
Saiga antelope (S. tatarica)
Neotragini
Dorcatragus
Beira (D. megalotis)
Madoqua
Günther's dik-dik (M. guentheri)
Kirk's dik-dik (M. kirkii)
Silver dik-dik (M. piacentinii)
Salt's dik-dik (M. saltiana)
Neotragus
Royal antelope (N. pygmaeus)
Nesotragus
Bates' pygmy antelope (N. batesi)
Suni (N. moschatus)
Oreotragus
Klipspringer (O. oreotragus)
Ourebia
Oribi (O. ourebi)
Raphicerus
Steenbok (R. campestris)
Cape grysbok (R. melanotis)
Sharpe's grysbok (R. sharpei)
Cephalophini
Cephalophus
Aders's duiker (C. adersi)
Brooke's duiker (C. brookei)
Peters' duiker (C. callipygus)
White-legged duiker (C. crusalbum)
Bay duiker (C. dorsalis)
Harvey's duiker (C. harveyi)
Jentink's duiker (C. jentinki)
White-bellied duiker (C. leucogaster)
Red forest duiker (C. natalensis)
Black duiker (C. niger)
Black-fronted duiker (C. nigrifrons)
Ogilby's duiker (C. ogilbyi)
Ruwenzori duiker (C. rubidis)
Red-flanked duiker (C. rufilatus)
Yellow-backed duiker (C. silvicultor)
Abbott's duiker (C. spadix)
Weyns's duiker (C. weynsi)
Zebra duiker (C. zebra)
Philantomba
Blue duiker (P. monticola)
Maxwell's duiker (P. maxwellii)
Walter's duiker (P. walteri)
Sylvicapra
Common duiker (S. grimmia)
Suborder Suina
Suidae
Babyrousa
Buru babirusa (B. babyrussa)
North Sulawesi babirusa (B. celebensis)
Togian babirusa (B. togeanensis)
Hylochoerus
Giant forest hog (H. meinertzhageni)
Phacochoerus
Desert warthog (P. aethiopicus)
Common warthog (P. africanus)
Porcula
Pygmy hog (P. salvania)
Potamochoerus
Bushpig (P. larvatus)
Red river hog (P. porcus)
Sus
Palawan bearded pig (S. ahoenobarbus)
Bornean bearded pig (S. barbatus)
Visayan warty pig (S. cebifrons)
Celebes warty pig (S. celebensis)
Domestic pig (S. domesticus)
Flores warty pig (S. heureni)
Oliver's warty pig (S. oliveri)
Philippine warty pig (S. philippensis)
Wild boar (S. scrofa)
Timor warty pig (S. timoriensis)
Javan warty pig (S. verrucosus)
Tayassuidae
Tayassu
White-lipped peccary (T. pecari)
Catagonus
Chacoan peccary (C. wagneri)
Dicotyles
Collared peccary (D. tajacu)
Suborder Tylopoda
Camelidae
Lama
Llama (L. glama)
Guanaco (L. guanicoe)
Alpaca (L. pacos)
Vicuña (L. vicugna)
Camelus
Domestic Bactrian camel (C. bactrianus)
Dromedary/Arabian camel (C. dromedarius)
Wild Bactrian camel (C. ferus)
Suborder Whippomorpha
Hippopotamidae
Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus (H. amphibius)
Choeropsis
Pygmy hippopotamus (C. liberiensis)
Cetacea
see Cetacea
Taxon identifiers
Oryx leucoryx
Wikidata: Q237286
Wikispecies: Oryx leucoryx
ADW: Oryx_leucoryx
BioLib: 33673
BOLD: 462409
CoL: 7W6P2
ECOS: 767
EoL: 331080
EPPO: ORYXLE
GBIF: 5220164
iNaturalist: 42309
IRMNG: 10228200
ITIS: 625181
IUCN: 15569
MDD: 1006240
MSW: 14200958
NCBI: 39411
Observation.org: 86132
Open Tree of Life: 376064
Paleobiology Database: 149597
Species+: 4154
TSA: 12516
Xeno-canto: Oryx-leucoryx
Authority control databases: National
Israel
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