Scimitar Oryx
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Scimitar Oryx Conservation status: Critical | ||||||||||||||||
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 Scimitar Oryx | ||||||||||||||||
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| Oryx dammah Cretzschmar, 1827 |
The Scimitar Oryx (Oryx dammah) is found in steppe and desert in central Niger and Chad, the extent of their habitation is unknown.
The Scimitar Oryx is just over a metre at the shoulder and weighs around two hundred kilograms. Their coats are white with a red-brown chest and black markings on the forehead and down the length of the nose. The horns are long, thin and parallel and curve backwards (like a scimitar) and can reach a metre to a metre and a quarter on both sexes.
The Scimitar Oryx lives in steppe and desert where they eat leaves, grass and fruit. They form herds of mixed sex containing up to seventy animals. Formerly they would gather in groups of several thousand for migration, but there are no longer enough oryx for this. Scimitar Oryx can survive without water for many weeks, because their kidneys prevent loss of water from urination and they can raise their body temperature to avoid perspiration.
Scimitar Oryx were hunted for their horns, almost to extinction. Where once they occupied the whole Sahara they now occupy two isolated pockets, one in Chad and one in Niger.fr:Oryx de Libye nl:Sabeloryx
