Arabian Gazelle

The Arabian gazelle, Gazella arabica, is a small gazelle from the Arabian Peninsula. For most of the twentieth century it was counted as part of the mountain gazelle, Gazella gazella, a species that ranges from Turkey and the Levant down into Arabia. Genetic studies changed that picture. They showed that mountain gazelles form two separate lineages, a northern one in the Levant and a southern one in Arabia, and the southern lineage is now treated as a species of its own. Its scientific name has a curious story. It was based on a single museum specimen from 1825, said to come from the Farasan Islands in the Red Sea, and a 2013 study found that its skin and skull came from two different animals of two different lineages. To keep the name stable, scientists tied it to the skin only. The same work merged Erlanger's gazelle, also called Neumann's gazelle, into this species, so older books may use that name. In Arabic it is known as idmi.

The Arabian gazelle lives in Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, and a small population lives on Farur Island in the Persian Gulf, which belongs to Iran. These island gazelles were long thought to be introduced, but a 2021 genetic study found that they split from the mainland animals about 10,000 years ago, when rising seas after the last ice age cut the island off. The species avoids the soft sand seas and prefers firmer ground: the foothills of ranges such as the Hajar, gravel plains, coastal flats and wadis, the dry valleys where acacia trees give both food and shade. Oman held the largest population, about 13,000 animals in the 1990s, most of them on the Jiddat al Harasis plateau, but poaching has cut that number sharply since then. Saudi Arabia has around 1,500 to 1,700, roughly 1,000 of them on the Farasan Islands. The Emirates have small, scattered groups, and Yemen still has gazelles, although the war has stopped any recent count.

The Arabian gazelle is a small, lightly built antelope that stands about 60 to 70 centimeters at the shoulder and weighs 12 to 22 kilograms, with males a little heavier than females. Its coat is darker than many people expect from a desert animal. The back and sides are a warm fawn to chestnut brown, and a dark band along each flank separates them from the white belly. A white stripe runs from above each eye toward the muzzle, with a darker stripe below it, and there is often a dark patch on the nose. The ears are long and narrow, and the large dark eyes sit high on the head to watch open ground. Both males and females have horns. In males they are long, ringed along most of their length and curve gently backward, with the tips turning slightly forward or upward. In females they are short, thin and nearly smooth, sometimes only a few centimeters long. The slim, long legs are built for quick sprints and sharp turns on rocky ground.

The Arabian gazelle often shares its countries with the Arabian sand gazelle, Gazella marica, known in Arabic as reem, but the two are different species. The sand gazelle lives in open sand and gravel deserts, while the Arabian gazelle prefers rougher ground with foothills, wadis, coastal plains and acacia woodland. The easiest clue is color. The sand gazelle is very pale, almost white on the face and body, with a faint flank band, while the Arabian gazelle is a richer fawn to chestnut brown with a clear dark band along each side. Male sand gazelles have thick horns that spread outward in a lyre shape, while Arabian gazelle males have slimmer, more upright horns. Females of both species carry short, thin horns, so in females coat color is the better clue. They also breed differently: twins are common in the sand gazelle but almost unknown in the Arabian gazelle. In the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve both species live side by side, and rangers count them separately.

The Arabian gazelle is a herbivore, but it is more of a browser than a grazer. Instead of feeding mainly on grass, it picks the most nutritious parts of trees and shrubs. Acacia trees are at the center of its diet. It eats their leaves, flowers and seed pods, and when the best food is out of reach it can rear up on its hind legs, resting its front feet on a branch, to pull down higher shoots. After rain it also takes fresh grasses and small herbs, which appear quickly on gravel plains and in wadis and disappear just as fast. On the Farasan Islands, researchers found that the gazelles eat a large share of fruit. The species feeds mostly in the cool hours of early morning and late afternoon, when plants hold more moisture. Much of the water it needs comes from this food, so it can go long periods without drinking, although it will drink from pools when they are available. In some areas it competes with goats, sheep and camels for the same shrubs and trees.

Arabian gazelles are most active at dawn and in the evening. In the heat of midday they lie down in the shade of an acacia or a rock and chew their cud, getting up again when the temperature drops. They live in small groups rather than large herds. Females usually move with their young of the year, young males gather in bachelor groups, and adult males often live alone and defend a territory, marking it with piles of dung and scent from glands on the face and chasing away rival males. Groups are loose and change with the seasons, joining where food is good after rain and splitting again in dry months. The main natural predator is the Arabian wolf. A study in Saudi Arabia found that places where researchers met wolves more often had fewer gazelles, a sign that wolves shape how many gazelles an area can hold. To escape, the gazelle relies on sharp eyes, long ears and a fast, zigzag sprint over rocky ground, although its top speed has never been measured.

Female Arabian gazelles give birth to a single fawn. A study that followed captive herds at the King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre in Saudi Arabia for 16 years, with almost 500 births, found only singletons. Births happened in every month of the year, with one peak in March and April and a larger one between July and December. Pregnancy lasts about six months, based on data from the closely related mountain gazelle. Like other gazelles, the newborn is a hider. For its first weeks it lies flat and still among rocks or shrubs while the mother feeds nearby, coming back several times a day to nurse it, which keeps it hidden from wolves while it is too weak to run. Heavier fawns had a better chance of surviving, and birth weight depended more on genes from the parents than on the condition of the mother. Young gazelles start nibbling plants within weeks and later join the mother's group, where they stay until young males leave to form bachelor groups.

The IUCN lists the Arabian gazelle as Vulnerable, with a population that is still decreasing. The main threats are illegal hunting, the capture of live gazelles for private collections, competition with livestock for food and water, and the spread of roads, farms and buildings across open land. Oman shows how fast things can change: its population, once the largest in Arabia, has fallen steadily since the 1990s because of poaching. In the United Arab Emirates, a 2023 survey counted 421 Arabian gazelles in the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, 43 percent fewer than in a similar count two years earlier. In Yemen the war has stopped wildlife surveys. There is also good news. The species lives in protected areas across its range, the Farasan Islands are a reserve where gazelles are counted every two or three years, and captive herds such as the one at the King Khalid Wildlife Research Centre have been used to return gazelles to places where they had disappeared.